It's a pretty common feeling among Potter fans that the first three books of Harry Potter were the best of the series, and significantly different in kind to the later books. Philosopher’s Stone, Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban established and followed the "Potter formula" which I think worked very well. Later books went off in the direction of a wizarding war.

I've recently been thinking about how it would be interesting/fun to write a post-POA series continuation of Harry Potter which continued to follow the formula rather than being about war. Such a continuation would continue to depict a self-contained adventure within Hogwarts each year, usually at least tangentially related to Voldemort, but not necessarily directly involving him. Voldemort would at no point regain his body and restart the wizarding war.

But what, exactly, does the Potter formula consist of? I've put what I can figure out below, please add your own ideas.

General

- Each book follows Harry in third-person limited. No other character viewpoints are depicted.
- Each book is relatively short. (Prisoner of Azkaban was around 110,000 words).
- Each book is rated PG. Swearing is alluded to but never appears on the page, romance is not depicted beyond kissing. That said, each book is slightly more mature in rating than the previous, reflecting the ages of the primary characters.

Plot

- Each book begins with Harry at the Dursleys before promptly returning to the magical world and Hogwarts.
- Each book centres around a mystery which Harry, Ron and Hermione will solve.
- Adults, one way or another, will not be able to solve the problems of the students, nor solve the mystery.
- Each book has a different Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, who will usually be connected in some way to the central mystery.
- Harry receives at least one interesting magical object in the story, which will either be significant in solving the mystery or be connected to a subplot (e.g. some connection to Voldemort or his parents).
- Normal school life (well, normal for a magical boarding school) will form a significant component of the story, forming the backbone upon which the mystery is built.
- The Quidditch Cup is depicted. At least one game will be disrupted by a plot-related cause.
- Each book concludes with a conversation with Dumbledore.

Characters

- Characters (especially adults) should have slightly comical names which do something to represent their nature.
- Harry is talented and is beginning to show it (Patronus Charm), but learns best by doing, not from books. He is brave and has a particular talent for deduction as well as breaking rules. His sense of humour is sarcastic. As the books progress he becomes less passive.
- Hermione is intelligent and learns best by reading. Her sense of humour is haughty and derisive. As the books progress she is becoming more social, confident, and less rigid in her obedience of rules.
- Ron is funny, loyal, and social. He is of average magical talent. His sense of humour often relates to enjoying the misfortune of others. As the books progress he must face his insecurities about his more-accomplished brothers.
- Each book features at least one confrontation with Draco Malfoy.

Magic

- Each book focuses on two or three new and interesting spells/items of magic which are the primarily-used magic of that book, and will be used during the climax.
- The workings of magic in general are not explained to the reader.
- Ability with magic is shown to be arrived at through study, practice and experimentation.
- The most powerful magic users are associated with creativity.
- Most people are not magic generalists, having areas of magic or even particular spells that they are particularly talented in.
- No magical exhaustion!
- Enchanted objects and potions possess useful abilities that cannot easily be replicated by a single spell.

World

- Each book expands on areas within and around Hogwarts.
- Each book expands on the magical world outside of Hogwarts, but the focus will be mainly on Hogwarts.
- Information about Harry's parents and the details of Voldemort's rise and fall are drip-fed to the reader.
- Each book introduces at least one magical creature.

 

Really? My favorites were always 3, 4 and 5.

I don't know if I'd be as interested in Harry Potter if Voldemort never came back. And every book following the same "formula" seems like it would get very repetitive.

 

I think that trying to stick to the "formula" when it became apparent that there is something bigger going on is what wrecked the latter books. GoF would definitely been better if it didn't try to be the usual year end resolved problem, same goes for OotP.

HBP was just shit in general, but again it would have been better if there would have been series of smaller arcs instead of the year long one. The Draco cabinet affair could have been resolved in two days flat and that switch to the Slughorn and than to Dumbledore's interactive slideshow. Each resolved in a month/couple of weeks. Perhaps than they could have restarted the DA as a way to keep spirits up, do something about the looming war. Quicker less singular plotlines could have saved that dreadful mess of a book. We would still have hated it, but for different, less justified, reasons.

 

Well a Harry Potter rewrite without Voldemort's actual return is doable, if you consider that a device of the first three books (And, duh, most of the others) is about the history and the legend aspect of the Boy-Who-Lived and You-Know-Who. The celebrity of it all, to a normal orphan kid confronting magic mystery with his friends, is this element of strangeness and alienation between Harry and the other students, who mostly believe he keeps wanting to stay relevant and get some attention by solving said magical mysteries, while the actual students who interact with him realise it's just an intrinsic part of Harry's nature. Maybe in a bit of awareness as he grows up, Harry decides to actively pursue or prevent such incidents, or begins to relish in it a bit. He can't control his raging teenage hormones or the fact he'll be made a pariah at the drop of a hat, but why not go out and search for things that go bump in the night?

Now, as Harry keeps doing his thing, a correlation can be drawn between the fact all his confrontations involve Voldemort or his followers. The history of that war is built up in the background, relevant to Harry mostly as any orphan would find it: when his parents are mentioned. If Voldemort doesn't come back as some do suspect (Aka Dumbledore) and Harry just keeps having adventures, the weave behind it all may have to do with some other antagonistic force using the pattern to their advantage, and the celebrity aspect. The legend of Harry Potter, slayer of basilisks and the boy who hunted down Sirius Black, and whatever else magical mystery happens.

Antagonistic force has their own agenda, for example former Death Eaters subtly pushing reform into the Ministry bills to make things even more racist than before, basically doing what Voldemort did without the terror aspect, just patience. Former Death Eaters would want Harry to go down as a martyr or to their way of thinking or to just irrelevancy rather than face an idealistic heavyweight with Dumbledore's hand on his shoulder who likes to solve problems and might be growing up in Hogwarts to be a capable and creative Defence Against The Dark Arts-lovin' guy. Not some crazy immortal racist megalomaniac bad guy, just a cadre of cautious and smart people who too have failings in some aspects: arrogance, blind eye to certain aspects of Harry's legend being untrue.

And all of that is background. Think The Dresden Files. Monster-of-the-week within an arc-based plot running behind it and an even bigger play behind that. Harry goes on a magical mystery adventure funtime. Slowly, as the years go on, it seems there's a connective tissue or some bad shit's about to go down with Harry, if not at the centre, than at least at a place of awareness and some stake in it. Graduate from Hogwarts with a full-blown Changes-level finisher plot, that culminates all the mystery plays with some brutality of growing up and leaving the comfort of Hogwarts, and some acknowledgement of Voldemort's wraith in a "leave it in the past" way, because that broken mad spirit is all that remains of a great ambitious man turned crazy motherfucker, and isn't worth half as much as the fear of the name of Voldemort, that legend in the magical history books, the recent reminder of the wizarding world facing a cataclysmic change.

Who knows how it'd end. Things'd get darker over the series as Harry grows up some, but I could imagine that he takes down some bad guys and makes uneasy alliances with more than he would've liked, some friends are alive and some friends are dead, some mysteries are solved but the bigger question remains about the state of the world Harry's now fully ingrained into: he's an adult in a broken society divided by racial issues and corruption and ways of thinking that might not benefit the future, but if Harry wants to change things he'll have to accept that things would stay the same easier than move in different places, but he'd have to keep fighting for the little victories, giving him the same feeling of solving a good Hogwarts mystery.

And of course for Harry himself he's wondering if the eleven-year-old him who just liked the escape from the Dursleys and the promise of magic would look at him now and just flinch, because there sits a man out of school and into real life with no idea of what's ahead or what's expected of him, and for every time he sought out trouble with noble intentions and then later sought out trouble for things like revenge and evening the score and for the chase of a satisfying feeling of closure, he's had to use the bargaining chip of his celebrity that's only been born out of the fact his parents are dead and they died to end a war that was far from over in the spiritual sense. What is that dude like? What are his friends like and how do they treat him? What is the world like with his presence as it is? Why does growing up and facing reality of life come with so many bells and whistles when all he wants to do is be seventeen and at home in Hogwarts again?

Basically, all that. That's one idea of a HP storyline which keeps the formula through the Hogwarts years and then pays it off without bringing back Voldemort himself but also without forgetting the guy ever existed and that his ideologies make up part of the fabric of the main setting and world. Harry has his formulaic adventures but, as time rolls on so must he, growing and changing with the world around him, his very existence as the Boy-Who-Lived who doesn't want to be that but knows it's there is presented as a complex character base to spring off of and fuel the rest of the story's very aspects. Do that. Or something else. See? Not that hard.

 

As does the beginning of Half-blood Prince.

Poor fox; you bitch, Bellatrix!

 

Not to mention Philosopher's also has a scene narrated from Ron and Hermione's perspective (the Quidditch match).

 

That's just the sort of pedantic correction I'd expect (and appreciate) from you, Taure! Hey, wait a minute.

 

I think GOF has a scene from Frank Bryce's perspective too.

 

There are occasionally other points of view in books 4-7, but...

...Taure is trying to formulate the formula (ehehehe) of the first three books.

As mentioned, Philosopher's Stone dips into other perspectives on occasion. It also has lines along the lines of "little did he know" (at least in the first chapter), which shifts the perspective to that of an omniscient narrator. While I prefer third-person limited, these aspects give a very 'story book feel' that I think works well in PS.

 

I remember what you said in that one thread Rhaegar made asking people how they would have written the HP series. You said that you would have never brought Voldemort and that you would rather pursue a more Buffy-like direction.

I suppose I could support that. Although Voldemort could be resurrected for the last book only.

 

That's an excellent list, Taure. Completely agree with everything, except these

Seem more like wish fulfillment to me. I mean, I want these to happen 100%, but I wouldn't call them Potter Formula designed by Rowling.

I'd read the shit out of a fic that follows these guidelines. Well written, it'd probably be better than the later books.

 

I want to see your canon notes for no magical exhaustion.

I think it's a wonderful idea and would love to read a fic that does not have magical exhaustion. Like, "Merlin dueled 100 wizards to the death." In a row or all at once.

It's magic!

 

A formula for art. How very Taure.

 

Hurr durr. No magical exhaustion does not mean no mental exhaustion.

 

Eh, "mental exhaustion" is a cop out. I really doubt any fight would last long enough for mental exhaustion to set in. I'm not even sure if using magic has much of a mental component, with the exception of certain rare spells. Learning magic (aka study) is of course mentally tiring, but once you've learned how to use a spell it seems that it's no longer difficult at all to use.

thisperson: feel free to read any of my fics. Or, you know, canon, where not a single fight is resolved by a person running out of gas but rather by one person being better at magic than another person.

 

When I say Mental Exhaustion, I mean the kind we get in real life. Concentrating for too long and the like. Not, you get a headache because magic.

 

Please, guys, don't start this again. Not here.

 

Writing a book by formula?

Taure is Dan Brown!!!

 

I think 'format' is a better word for this. Nothing wrong with following a format. Every TV-show you've ever seen does it - even the good ones.