THE Writer's Guide

Part 6 Plot "22 Steps via Anatomy of Story"

Final Action Against Opponent: The hero may make one last actionㅡmoral or immoralㅡagainst the opponent just before or during the battle.

Moral Self-Revelation: The crucible of the battle produces a self-revelation in the hero. The hero realizes that he has been wrong about himself and wrong toward others and realizes how to act properly toward others. Because the audience identifies with this character, the self-revelation drives the theme home with great power.

Moral Decision: The hero chooses between two courses of action, thus proving this moral self-revelation.

Thematic Revelation, in great storytelling, the theme achieves its greatest impact on the audience at the thematic revelation. The thematic revelation is not limited to the hero. Instead, it is an insight the audience has about how people in general should act and live in the world.

(Pg 212-219)  Using Examples from Harry Potter to explain other techniques suggested by Truby.  The video below is a very clever summary of all 7 books in 99 seconds.

HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE
(novel by J.K. Rowling, screenplay by Steven Kloves, 2001)

Story World in One Line:  A school for wizards in a giant magical medieval castle.

Overall Arena:  All of the Harry Potter stories combine myth, fairy tale, and the schoolboy-coming-of-age story

Value Opposition and Visual Opposition The story has a number of value opposition on which the visual oppositions are based.

Harry and the wizards of Hogwarts versus Muggles

Harry versus Lord Voldemort: The main opposition is between good wizard Harry and evil wizard Voldemort.

Harry versus Draco Malfoy: The third major opposition is student to student. Young Draco Malfoy is aristocratic and disdainful of the poor

Land, People, and Technology: The story is set in the present, but it is really a throwback to an earlier societal stage with a very different combination of land, people, and technology than the audience expects.

Systems: The Harry Potter stories fuse two systems: the prep school and the world of magic. This fusion is the gold of the story idea ( and worth billions of dollars). Writer J.K. Rowling has taken great pains to detail the rules and workings of this hybrid system. The headmaster and head wizard is Professor Dumbledore.

Natural Settings: Hogwarts castle is built beside a mountain lake and is surrounded by the Dark Forest.

Weather Weather: is used to some dramatic effect but in a fairly predictable way.

Man- made species: Rowling makes full use of techniques of man- made spaces in storytelling. She sets up the magic world first showing the mundane. The castle of Hogwarts School is the ultimate warm house, with infinite nooks and crannies, filled with a community of students and teachers. The center of the warm house is the great dining hall, the cathedral- like space hung with banners that hark back to King Arthur and the days of chivalry. Within this warm house is a labyrinth of diversity. This warm house also has its terrifying places. There is the forbidden area on the third floor, dusty, and empty, with a room and a trapdoor guarded by a huge three- headed dog.

Miniatures: The sport of Quidditch is a miniature of this magical and Harry's place in it. Just as Hogwarts is a hybrid of the boarding school and the world of magic, Quidditch combines rigby, cricket, and soccer with flying broomsticks, witchcraft, and the jousting contests of the knights of old England

Passageways:  Rowling uses three passageways in the story. The first is the brick wall Hagrid "opens" by spinning the bricks like a Rubik's Cube. With this gateway, Harry moves from the mundane world of his Muggle upbringing to the wizard street of Diagon Alley.

Technology: The technology is among the most inventive of all the elements. This is magic tech, and it has the dual appeal of the power of modern high technology allied with the charm of animals and magic.

Hero's Change and World Change By the end of the story, Harry has overcome the ghost of his parents' death and learned of the power of love.

Seasons: Rowling connects the circularity of the school year- including the seasons-with the deeply natural setting of Hogwarts School

Holiday or Ritual: Sorcerer's stone includes Halloween and Christmas as punctuation points in the rhythm of the school year, but the author doesn't comment on the underlying philosophy of either. Now let's examine the visual seven steps and the story elements associated with them (indicated in italics)

Harry's Problem Ghost: As in many myth stories, Harry appears first as a baby, a founding to be raised by others. The wizards hint at his ghost (the event from Harry's past that will haunt him) and the fame that will precede him, which is why they are placing him with a Muggle family they know to be horrible.

Weakness and Need:  Harry doesn't know his origins or his great potential as a wizard. He and the audience get a sense of what he doesn't know when he visits the snake exhibit at the zoo. Later, in the great hall of Hogwarts, both Harry's potential and his need are underscored in front of the entire school when the sorting hat says he has courage, a fine mind, talent, and a thirst to prove himself.

Desire, Ghost

1. Overall desire for the series: to go to Hogwarts School and learn to become a great wizard

2. Desire line that tricks this book: to win the school cup.

3. Desire line for the second half of this story: To solve the mystery of the Sorcererś Stone under the trapdoor

Opponent:         Suburban house, classes, stadium, bathroom. Harry faces his first opponents, Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Cousin Dudley, in his own house. Harry's ongoing opponent among the students is Draco Malfoy.

Opponent Apparent Defeat:        Dark Forest. Lord Voldemort is Harry's long-term, behind-the-scenes, most powerful opponent. Rowling, in the first of seven Potter books, faces a difficult story problem. Since she must sustain this opposition for seven books, and because Harry is only eleven years old in the first book, she must start Voldemort in a highly weakened state. Still, voldemort and his subworlds are dangerous.

Opponent, Battle Underworld of Hogwarts(trapdoor, Devil's Snare, enclosed room): Harry's battle with Voldemort takes place in an enclosed room-a tight space. The room itself is at the bottom of a long flight of stairs, which gives the effect of being at the point of a vortex.

Self-Revelation Room of fire, infirmary: Under extreme attack from Voldemort and Professor Quirrell, Harry takes a stand as a wizard for good. Recovering in the infirmary, he learns from Professor Dumbledore that his body is literally infused with and protected by love.

New Equilibrium Train station: With the school year over, the students are about to go through the passageway back to the mundane world. But Harry is now armed with a picture book that Hagrid gives him that shows him in the loving arms of the parents he never knew.

Be Brave!  You can write our next Epic!