Who doesn’t love Harry Potter? While for many it is this whimsical children’s tale that turns out to be completely magical, little do we know that the real magic lies in J.K Rowling’s storytelling. A recent Twitter thread which is now going viral elaborates on the same. Started by Nathan Baugh, the thread elaborates on Harry Potter is the #2 best-selling book of the last quarter century, only behind The Bible. With this, he has posted an image of the the actual outline that the author used to plan chapters 13-24 of The Order of the Phoenix. “Based on interviews, we can guess she used the same (or a very similar) structure across each of the books,” he wrote.
The outline is divided into 10 columns and it can be further sorted into two buckets, that is, Progress and Progression, Subplots and Characters.
“Each row is a chapter. And each chapter includes at least 3 subplots. They’re all interconnected and they all drive the main plot forward. There is zero wasted space, and JK does the same thing from book 1 to 7,” read the thread further. Have a look:
Harry Potter is the #2 best-selling book of the last quarter century.Only behind The Bible.
And JK Rowling used 1 storytelling framework for the entire series.
Here’s a breakdown: pic.twitter.com/nAufWnVDlT
— Nathan Baugh ????️ (@nathanbaugh27) January 3, 2023
Here’s the actual outline she used to plan chapters 13-24 of The Order of the Phoenix.Based on interviews, we can guess she used the same (or a very similar) structure across each of the books.
And across the series as a whole.
Let’s look at the key concepts: pic.twitter.com/rOjirqitjl
— Nathan Baugh ????️ (@nathanbaugh27) January 3, 2023
The outline is divided into 10 columns.Broadly, the 10 can be sorted into two buckets:
1/ Progress & Progression2/ Subplots & Characters
It’s brilliant in its simplicity.
— Nathan Baugh ????️ (@nathanbaugh27) January 3, 2023
Let’s look back at the outline.Each row is a chapter.
And each chapter includes at least 3 subplots.
They’re all interconnected and they all drive the main plot forward.
There is zero wasted space, and JK does the same thing from book 1 to 7. pic.twitter.com/K5neP3s3sE
— Nathan Baugh ????️ (@nathanbaugh27) January 3, 2023
Rowling told the story in layers. She interconnected:
– the current generation– the previous generation– the generation before that
Each layer added a level of complexity for both her and the reader.
But her structure kept it cohesive.
— Nathan Baugh ????️ (@nathanbaugh27) January 3, 2023
If Rowling does have a structure like this wrapped around the whole series, this is what I imagine it looks like:– 7 books for 7 years– 1 main plot per book– 5 interconnected subplots throughout
All designed to come to a crescendo in book 7.
Brilliance. pic.twitter.com/wR9rt0fwVG
— Nathan Baugh ????️ (@nathanbaugh27) January 3, 2023
The thread has now gone viral with over 8.7K likes. “Loved this. So cool to see something as epic as Harry Potter begin as a hand-drawn outline on a piece of paper,” wrote a Twitter user. Another person wrote, “Love the interconnected nature. It’s clear once you start down this path what you write will be epic!”
“That hand-written outline is a great reminder that your work doesn’t need to be pretty or perfect to be extremely effective,” wrote another user.
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