Memetic propagation

[deborah_c]

A few days ago, tnatj asked:

If you were set the task of completing the Harry Potter series of wizarding books, how would you plot the seventh volume? Given the constraints of the previous books and who you think is the target audience, what would you emphasize in both theme and detail?

Note: this is not a query about how you think Ms. Rowling will finish the series; but how you would finish it. Yes, to some extent, this is a bit of a Rorschach test — that's why it's a meme, I suppose. I do have my own inchoate feelings about how I'd do it; but I'd like to hear yours — Hearing yours might crystalize mine.

You may wish to respond in your own blog about this. If so, please provide a link in a comment here.

[Postscript] Oh! Also, discussion of why you made the choices you did in the plot and theme would be most helpful. [/Postscript]

So, seeing as I have all these talented friends who can actually write, but most of whom wouldn't have seen his journal, I thought I should reask the question... Probably best to comment on his entry rather than here.

Comments

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

I'd spin out the plot-points generated by the 'Horcrux' artifacts into at least four more books and a videogame franchise. Do what all fantasy authors seem to do these days - don't conclude a story cycle as a meaningful trilogy or epic, spin out as many sequels as you can until youve banked all the money that the readers will ever cough up.

And then, when everyone has lost interest (and rightly so, because it's no longer interesting) write the concluding blockbuster where the main characters die in a blaze of glory. Drop hints that this happens to boost sales of the book...

...And if the LAST AND FINAL INSTALMENT sells over a million, bring 'em all back from the dead for yet another tedious sequel.

[deborah_c]

bring 'em all back from the dead

I'm rather reminded of the synopsis to PDQ Bach's opera The Stoned Guest...

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I must look out the opera synopses I did for the Conthirteena progress reports...that one's fun, but I actually rather think mine are a little better even without the in-jokes...

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

GW Bush decides that Hogwarts is a hotbed of al-Queda activity, AND won't believe the Ministry of Magic's inspectors that Voldemort has no WMDs on the ground AND discovers vast deposits of oil under the Whomping Willow. The US military invades and declares "mission accomplished" while Harry and Ron become insurgents and train first-years to be suicide broomers.

All die. O, the embarrassment!

[highstone.livejournal.com]

Opera plots eh?

[Jimmy Saville] "Ow's about, ow's about a little Wagnerian stuff, eh?"[/Jimmy Saville]

A grand finale entitled 'Potterdammerung'. In which our young hero is on the point of claiming the final horcrux, when he is treacherously stabbed in the back. Then he is borne aloft by members of the DA, (to the strains of a massive symphonic death-march), and off to a wizardly funeral pyre of magical flames.

In the meantime, Lord VoleofDeath rushes into claim his fragment of soul - but is in his turn slain by Ginny Weasly who has flown in on Buckbeak. The funeral pyre spreads everywhere and engulfs Hogwarts, whilst Ginny sings a *very* long aria, the lake overflows and drowns THE LOT as Dumbledore and previous headmasters look on from Valhalla (or wherever dead wizzards go.)

Potential there for lots of visual FX in the film version I reckon?

[mrph.livejournal.com]

Still haven't read the latest one. Although I do have the Clive Barker 'bait and switch' version in my head... where somewhere in book 5 or 6, Voldemort shuffles off his not-strictly-mortal coil and someone else steps forward for the final confrontation with Harry. Malfoy senior, perhaps?

The problem is that seven books of him is too many. Only one book has really kept him offstage throughout - so it's got a certain "Oh, you again" quality by now.

Admittedly that's because he's being set up as the big bad evil so that when he's gone at the end of #7, it all gets better again (I don't expect JKR to spend too much time worrying about what havoc his followers will wreak in a post-Voldemort world). But still...