HJ1 - Discussion Topic Options

[evlpez]

After a much-too-long hiatus, Journey to Hogwarts is back! The Mods and Admins (StarWalker, Zymurgy, Evlpez, and Agrippa) have been working to build some guidelines for making this Project Ferret's first novel. We wanted to let you know what we've done and why, as well as invite you to participate in finishing this project, preferably before Half-Blood Prince is published and JK kills off someone we've made a major character.

Our goals in this re-structuring were as follows:

1. To focus the story on a handful of major characters and specifically on James as the protagonist. We felt that the number of characters was getting positively overwhelming. However, realizing that there are some great characters here, we have also planned this to be a seven-book series, with each book focusing on a different character.

2. To re-write Duke's character so that he's not a Malfoy clone. To do this, we played up Duke's muggle roots, made him more of a victim than a bully, and stripped him of his gang of thugs. We think you'll find him much more believable and interesting this way.

3. To write a backstory foundation for the novel to rest on. There's probably more backstory in this re-structuring than we'll ever need; but we hope it will help propell us through possibly seven novels. We've done detailed character sketches of all of the major players, written backstory on the villians, and done a full calendar.

4.To make sure our eleven-year-old wizards talk like eleven-year-old wizards and perform the kind of magic eleven-year-old wizards can do.

5. To cut down on the number of characters related to a canon character. Since we're writing a "next generation" story, some relatives are bound to crop up. But it seemed like everyone we met was related to some one we knew. Many of those relationships have been purned back.

6. To write a complete outline of the plot so that the story has direction. Like the missions for a duel, we have to have direction or we go nowhere fast.

Everything that was written previously has now been edited to fit the new plot outline. Here's what you can do to get involved.

1. Read the new plot outline, backstory, and character profiles. These will give you an idea of where the story is headed and hopefully get you excited to write.

2. Read the edited "story so far". This will help you get an idea of the style of writing we're trying to achieve.

3. Jump in! Please don't be afraid to write or comment on anything that's been done. We've been working on this for a long time, and we're excited to hear all of your comments and ideas.

We look forward to writing with you as we finish Hogwarts Journeys I: My Name is James. (That's the new title.)

[StarWalker]

To complement what evlpez said above - the eight edited chapters comprise 52 posts. The smallest number of posts in an individual chapter is three, the most is probably ten or so.

Probably the best way to look at the relationship between the plot outline and posting is to consider the outline as a series of mission statements in a contest. The complete chapter description provides a framework, and the individual sentences in the outline might be looked at as specific items that must be included. When you write, you may want to do just one element, and that's fine, or you may feel ambitious, and want to write an entire chapter, and that's fine too!

Please note: the outline is not a rigid step by step recipe. As chapters are written, the outline becomes a summary of the story so far, and will be corrected to match the actual edited story. Thus the outline today is an indication of where the story is envisioned to go for chapters 9-25, while chapters 1-8 are a quick summary of what actually occurred in those chapters.

To make the point more forcefully, chapters 1-8 in the outline are not the same as they were written, which was shortly after Christmas. In the process of final editing, things got changed, deleted, moved around within a chapter, and even moved from one chapter to another. These modifications were incorporated into the outline just before it was opened back up.

As you're writing, you may find the tale works better if you switch the order of two of the descriptive elements. Go ahead and switch them, or you can ask before you post. If there's a problem, someone will notify you.

One final thought. Final edited chapters are running 2500 to 5000 words; some are a little less, some may be a little more. In terms of editing, I'd rather have 500, or even 250, well thought out and crafted words to work with, than 2500 words chosen to meet a specific word count figure.

Dive in! The water's fine!