This week I've been in Ireland on my honeymoon, and while my husband Trevin and I have driven around the island on winding country roads, we've been listening intently to the audiobook Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It's Trevin's first time reading (well, I guess listening is the proper term) Harry Potter, and it's been very wonderful to experience the story again with him. It's enlightening to see his fresh perspective on Harry Potter. He constantly comments on Rowling's clever humor, sharp imagery, and powerful words.
As I've applied my new understanding from chapter 10 of When Words Collide to this experience, I've found that JK Rowling's prowess lies in her liveliness. Her writing is never overbearing or slow. She moves the story along gracefully with strong verbs, descriptive nouns, and varying sentence lengths.
Here is an example from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter 20:
"Harry felt oddly separate from everyone around him, whether they were wishing him good luck or hissing "We'll have a box of tissues ready, Potter" as he passed. It was a state of nervousness so advanced that he wondered whether he mightn't just lose his head when they tried to lead him out to his dragon, and start trying to curse everyone in sight. Time was behaving in a more peculiar fashion than ever, rushing past in great dollops, so that one moment he seemed to be sitting down in his first lesson, History of Magic, and the next, walking into lunch...and then (where had the morning gone? the last of the dragon-free hours?), Professor McGonagall was hurrying over to him in the Great Hall. Lots of people were watching."
I love how Rowling wove so many different elements of the day into one short paragraph. She used her swift, precise writing to personify Harry's feeling of rushing time.
The editing mistake I found this week was in a professor's email to the class. It was just a typo, but she wrote "dont" without an apostrophe. Definitely a no-no!
It’s amazing how books change when you re-read them, especially with someone else. I usually appreciate books more once I have read them twice. Im starting to think the best authors are those who know how to write with liveliness.
ReplyDeleteIt's one thing to recognize a concept and another thing to put that concept to use. I think that the concepts we went over this week are ones that we all need to use more.
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