Writing Tools

Write Like J.K. Rowling: Sample of Exercises

by Matthew McGuinness on


Thanks for the many emails asking when ‘Write Like J.K. Rowling’ will be coming out. The answer is, very very soon, I’m currently finishing the accompanying exercises, and hope to publish the ebook, paperback and exercises within a couple of weeks.

I’m extremely proud of the book, as it draws out some really unexpected and helpful lessons from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (known as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the US).

Since some of you might have a bit of writing time on your hands right now, I thought I should send you a sample of the exercises accompanying the book. So, here is the opening sequence – a guide to creating a setting for a novel. It can be applied to absolutely any genre.

The Setting

  1. Most popular novels demarcate a physical space and its human community – a main stage and actors. Give yourself exactly 1 minute to make a list of the main stages and their associated communities in as many novels as you can think of.
  2. Careful physical description of the stage satisfies a touristic urge in the reader but also anchors them in a reassuring way – it’s also exciting to be immersed in a different community.
    1. From your list, pick the main stage and community that you would most like to immerse yourself in. List some of the features that you enjoyed discovering as you read about it.
    2. Make a list of any other locations and communities – real or imagined – that you have thought about as a possible main stage for your own story, or which you would especially like to immerse yourself in.
  3. A main stage may have physical pressures built in that promote drama.
    1. Run through your list of potential locations and briefly identify the key physical constraints that affect the people’s lives there.
    2. Run through the list again and briefly list any social or psychological stress/conflict likely to be caused by the physical constraints.
  4. A main stage should also have moral pressures built in, promoting drama.
    1. Run through your list of potential communities and briefly identify the key values that govern the lives of people.
    2. Run through the list again and briefly list any social or psychological stress/conflict likely to be caused by the value system.
  5. School is an attractive subject for children. Do any of the settings in your list lend themselves to a story about some kind of educational experience (broadly defined)? If not, can you adjust one of your ideas along those lines?
  6. Which of your potential locations and associated communities is beginning to look the most promising in terms of generating drama? Focus on that from now on as your main stage.
  7. Indirect delivery of background information is usually best in a novel.
    1. Think of three indirect ways in which the physical constraints of your chosen location might express themselves in the environment or in people’s lives and actions.
    2. Think of three indirect ways in which the values of your chosen community might express themselves in people’s lives and actions.
  8. In HPATPS, descriptions of place are dense and elaborate to begin with, but sparse later.
    1. Give yourself five minutes to write a paragraph describing your main stage, which should cover as many indirect expressions of physical and values-based strain as possible.
    2. Give yourself 1 minute to come up with a single sentence that succinctly summarises the key feature of one specific place within that main stage location.

Talking Turkey

by Matthew McGuinness on

In this post, I have a couple of suggested techniques that make use of the neat speech functionality in Microsoft Windows / MS Word. I’ve found they really help me to achieve greater flow and productivity.

If I had to say what my biggest problem is when I’m writing an extended piece of fiction, it’s the problem of spontaneity. I tend to get bogged down as I go over and over small details of phrasing. I know in theory that I should just write freely and quickly and then go back over the text to edit it, but I have an internal critic who makes the Terminator look like a weakling.

Getting bogged down like that has two effects.

The first effect of unspontaneity is that I tend to lose my way. As a result, I fail to create an engaging, natural-feeling flow of events and dialogue.

To overcome that tendency towards stilted, unnatural writing, I recently started to look into the dictation functionality within Windows 10 (look it up using the search box in your task bar). Basically, I wanted to be able to describe out loud what I was imagining, and have it appear on the page without the cumbersome business of typing and thinking one word at a time.

Although it doesn’t work as perfectly as all that, I did find that – as a general technique – it allowed me to think in paragraphs rather than words or phrases, especially when I managed to totally absorb myself in my imaginary world and watch the story in my head like a movie. You might benefit from doing a mindfulness exercise beforehand.

The important thing is to spend the time teaching the software how to understand your particular way of speaking. It provides test passages for you to read before you start using the software for real. But, in addition to that, you should make use of the software’s correction functionality while you are dictating, so that it can learn where it is going wrong.

The second effect of my spontaneous writing habits may also be familiar to you. Basically, when I get past the initial pages of a new piece of writing and have perhaps a chapter in front of me, I often find that the writing seems stale and dull. The initial spark of inspiration that originally made me commit to that particular idea is gone, and what remains is lifeless and callow.

The reason for this feeling is that I have spent so long labouring over the idea that I’ve essentially killed it – at least in my own estimation. Like a sculptor who works on clay for so long that it goes dry and falls apart, I’ve ruined my material by overworking it.

Or have I?

The thing is, I’ve noticed a strange effect. If I come back to one of those passage a month later, it often seems much less damaged and dysfunctional than I thought.

So, another technique that I explored to overcome this temporary sense of disillusion makes use of the reading functionality in MS Word. Under the ‘Review’ tab, there is an option to have the software read your text back to you. Although the voices (there are 3 to choose from) are somewhat robotic, they do have enough natural phrasing to be understandable.

I find that hearing my writing read to me by another voice – not the one that’s in my head – really helps me to see the text as a viable, objective piece of literature – something that could stand on its own two feet and be acceptable to other readers. Of course, you might have a friend willing to do that for you, but if you’re like me, showing a first draft to any other human being would be mortifying.

Give these techniques a go and let me know what you think.