Inspired by a pet peeve, I decided to create some Potter Law style guidelines to post to my FF.Net Profile. However, it got rather out of hand, and I'm now not sure if I can post these to my profile... it's a bit long. Anyway, thoughts and opinions are welcome. I'll post the intro, and then provide a link to the Google Document: pasting it into here messes up the formatting.

Canon+ Guildelines
By Taure

Introduction

Some years ago now DLP created Potter Law: a series of fic writing guidelines. This was a mostly humorous exercise led by and executed brilliantly by Merrill. Though a lot of Potter Law does give good advice, I think the principle aim of that project was always to have a bit of a laugh.

It occurred to me to write a more systematic and comprehensive set of guidelines for what I believe makes a good Harry Potter fanfiction. This is a collection of my personal preferences and I do not seek to impose them on anyone else. It also allows me to compile in a single place all my current thoughts on the Harry Potter world. The series of articles which became “Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling” is now somewhat outdated.

These guidelines are - I believe - canon compliant, and as such some may find them interesting or useful. Note that I say canon compliant, not canon itself. Some of what I say here is supported by canon, either in whole or in part. However, much of it is also “filling in the gaps”. It should be clear to the reader where these bits are. I have tried not to directly contradict canon. However, I have done so in two places. I have indicated this next to the rules.

As a result of the part-canon, part-fanon nature of these guidelines, I think of the universe they describe as “canon+”.

The guidelines are split into four categories: magic, world, characters, and story. Predictably, magic is the largest and up first.

The Guidelines

Edit: have enabled commenting on the document. If you do comment, it would be cool if you left your username.

 

I've also started a similar project in the past. Instead, I broke up the categories into Dark Arts, Time Travel, Independent, etc, so people know what the common cliches are and would write a better story simply by not using those ideas. It turned out to be several thousand words long in the end, and was too long to put in my profile, so I didn't.

 

Apart from where we disagree about what constitutes magic and how magic itself functions, I like these guidelines very much.

Well done, Taure.

 

I was never as interested as you are with the finer point of magic and the magical world, but the guidelines about plot and character make an awful lot of sense to me. I wish more stories would follow them.

 

Interestingly, I think the reason why I love Santi's fic so much is because it pretty much obeys all these guidelines.

 

I'm almost certain that there is 'Word of God' about transfigured objects eventually reverting, but otherwise vaguely interesting.

 

Well, there's a bit of a fine distinction there.

In the rules I talked about "successful transfiguration" being permanent unless reversed. Successful transfiguration to me means a transfiguration which is complete. It's a point on the spell-casting spectrum just short of perfection.

There cannot be any remnant of the original object: no pattern on a shell, no odd behaviour, or anything like that. This is the only kind of transfiguration which is permanent. Partial transfiguration, on the other hand, will revert over time.

Harry, even though he got an E on his Transfiguration OWL, tended to still have some remnant of the original object in his transfigurations. So successful transfiguration corresponds to an O, I think. And I don't think many people get Os for their transfiguration.

 

Could you clarify how exactly Magic-16 works? A spell travels as fast as a wizard says incantation? He needs to say it fast/slow enough to finish speaking when the spell hits its target?

Also, World-18 - what about the magic preventing boys from entering girls' dormitory? Unless I remember it incorrectly.

And lastly, additionally to World-5 I prefer to imagine that after they hit adulthood, their looks also age slower. Meaning, differently to films and books, I imagine McGonagall looking more like 40 years old than "sprightly seventy year old" as she was somewhere described by Rowling (which is funny since, canonically speaking, she is about 55 years old by the beginning of the series, but then again Albus was said to be 150 years old at first).

 

I mean that when you cast an offensive spell, for example, the "travel time" of the spell is during the time that the incantation is being said. Spells start forming during the incantation. When you finish saying the incantation, the spell is over, and has either been blocked and has taken effect on the person - unless you're casting the spell over a long distance. See this post for more description and a link to a video.

If I remember correctly, this is considered something of a leftover of times past. The wizarding world isn't so liberal as to actively go about trying to enable sex/nudity by removing the charm on the stairs, but I also don't think they care too much about it. They certainly don't seem to care too much about the girls being able to get into the boys dorms.

And yes, I definitely agree with the idea that wizards age slower than Muggles, so that they experience the same physical ageing process only stretched over a long period of time.

However, menopause is simply a result of running out of germ cells. A woman is only born with so many, and only a proportion of those develop into ova. So even if a woman ages slower, unless she's born with more of those germ cells she's going to run out at the same time as a Muggle.

 

While it is entirely plausible and I agree with this point entirely. This has me wondering why are Muggle-born only receiving a visit from Hogwarts and not other schools? Technically, in canon, it just seems everyone can get in Hogwarts (poor or rich) whereas following your idea, only the riches should be able to afford the education in such a prestigious school.

 

On the point of appearance and aging, I think it's worth mentioning that McGonagall was hired as the Transfiguration instructor at the magical equivalent of Oxford, and at a relatively young age at that. In the timeline of the series she is also the Deputy Headmistress. It may be that she deliberately appears older as a way to shape how she is treated by students and peers.

EDIT @ Basilisk: Only the richest and/or most gifted muggleborns seem to attend Hogwarts (Dean, Hermione, Colin and Dennis, Lily). They may be getting the 'first draft picks'.

 

What? Mr. Creevey is a milkman.

Please don't start arguing that Colin and Dennis are highly-talented, because all evidence points to the opposite.

 

What evidence would that be? Colin was a spaz, but he mastered the use of a wizarding camera before making it to Hogwarts despite only knowing about magic for the summer. He was intrepid enough to track down the Basilisk and take its picture, and later escapes the youth restriction during the Battle of Hogwarts, falling to enemy fire outside of the castle walls.

Don't be dissing Jimmy Olsen my boy Colin and his bro. They have twice your courage.

 

Strictly speaking, he sneaks out to go and see Harry, and stumbles across the Basilisk. Whether stopping to take a photo of it is intrepid or just plain idiotic is another matter (however useful an action it might have been).

 

'the Creevey brothers were enthusiastic but erratic and mainly responsible for all the books leaping off the shelves around them' (excerpt OotP DA session)

You can write that off as spazzing out I suppose... but it seems more like being a pair of fail whales to me.

 

Making sure all Muggleborns were offered a place at Hogwarts sounds like the kind of thing Dumbledore would do. It also sounds like the kind of thing people like Lucius Malfoy would hate him for.

 

Never mind the Creeveys, how was Dean rich or especially talented?

 

Also, didn't JKR 'Word of God' that he's actually a half-blood?

 

Dean was actually a half-blood, but his father was killed by death eaters. The reveal was something J.K plotted but said she ultimately had to cut iirc.
EDIT: ninja'd

The actual document is fantastic. I am curious though, why have you chosen to contradict canon and say that only human wizards and witches can use wands? The source of friction caused by wand rights can be a good source of tension in political stories and, unless I'm missing something important, if it's not something a typical story would touch upon why it would merit a specific mention from you? (I am genuinely curious as to your reasoning, rather than trying to criticise, I know you're meticulous when it comes to this sort of thing)