#philosphers stone

Concept:

The first three book covers I redesigned for the Harry Potter series. Story-time: ever since I was a wee baby child, the Harry Potter series has always been a big part of my life. As cliche as it sounds, it’s what got me into reading when I was growing up and my interest in the books hasn’t diminished since. As a long time fan, I’ve been around the block a time or two and seen my fair share of variant book covers from different artists and countries. My concept was that I wanted to stray away from having any illustrations of the main trio and focus on specific elements/ objects that were important to each book without spoiling anything for new time fans while also incorporating Easter eggs for longtime fans such as myself.

Front and Back Covers: 1 of 2

1. The Sorcerers Stone: This was probably the hardest concept to design.I went with a silhouette of the Hogwarts Express in the foreground, behind that a silhouette of Hogwarts in the background and the forbidden forest on the sides. Then everything is placed inside of the Sorcerer’s/ Philosopher’s Stone to show that the Hogwarts will never vanish and will always live on. In front of everything else there are a couple Hogwarts letters falling like how Harry receives his letters in the books. The letter idea is further illustrated on the back cover (left) with the owl dropping dozens of letters around the text.

2. The Chamber of Secrets: This was the simplest design to create. The front cover is the door to the Chamber of Secrets while the back cover shows Dumbordore’s Phoenix:Fawkes fighting the Basilisk.

3. The Prisoner of Azkaban: My favorite book of the entire series and thus the cover I am most excited with the outcome. At first I struggled with ideas because the first thing I thought of was the wanted poster for Sirius Black since he plays a HUGE role in the book. But that idea seemed too obvious and overdone in my mind. So instead I went with the teacup that Harry receives in divination class with the prediction of the Grimm. In this metaphorical sense, the Grimm represents Sirius Black in his animagus form which is placed inside of Hogwarts castle because Sirius snuck into the castle while he was a dog. Both the design of the castle and the footsteps are reminiscent of pieces found on the Marauder’s map which Sirius and Remus both contributed in making. The footsteps also tie into Peter Pettigrew who was discovered to be alive by his footsteps on the Marauder’s map. Finally the circle that the illustration is in represents the full moon and Remus’s transformation into a werewolf each month.

Spines:

1. Sorcerer’s stone: Harry’s glasses with the iconic lightning bolt

2. Chamber of Secrets: Tom Riddle’s diary- aside from being an element of how Harry gets into the Chamber, it’s also a horcrux.

3. Prisoner of Azkaban: The Time Turner- Its how Harry and Hermione are able to go back in time to rescue Sirius and Buckbeak from death.

(Full document here, part one here, part two here)

Last time we talked about the plot of Harry Potter, now it’s time to talk about the characters. Starting with everyone’s favorites: Fred and George Weasley.

Most people fall in love with these two by the end of book one and it’s no wonder. They’re fantastic. But do you know that, of all 312 pages of my copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Fred and George are only mentioned on 28. I do mean mentioned, too. If I only counted pages where the boys are physically present, the number would drop below 20.

This is the power of using characters well. Of knowing just what to have them say or what to have them do in order to have your readers love them.

In the case of the Weasley twins, they’re power is in their actions and dialog. From the first scene we see them, we know that these two are jokers, but we also get a sense of their kind hearts when they help Harry get his things onto the train. We don’t have to be told they’re funny, we see that ourselves and that’s how you want it work. Never tell your readers how to feel about a character, that does nothing. Instead, show them who a character is and then allow them to form their own opinions.

Another excellent example of this is a character who gets even less “screen time” than the twins: Mrs. Weasley. She’s mentioned only a handful of times in the book and appears only twice, yet the reader gets a good feeling for who she is. We know she’s kind from how she treats Harry: telling her children to not mess with him and taking the time to make him a sweater for Christmas. The reader likes her and, when she shows up in book two, we already feel like we have a good sense of who she is.

When trying to develop your own characters, think about the characters you love. Think about why you love them and what the author who created them did to make them come to life for you. This technique applies to every character, even the main one because most people will have decided whether or not they like your main character pretty early on, so you’ve got to set them up well from the start.

J.K. Rowling does this for Harry by having chapter two of the book be about Harry and very little else. Sure, things happen in that chapter, but none of it has anything to do with the plot (yes, it sets up book 2, we’ll get to that in a bit). This is what we call a character event. Something that is added to the book for no reason other than to establish a character. They can be full scenes, bonus moments/bits of dialog, or even offhand mentions of something and Harry Potter is full of all three. Most well written books are.

Some examples of scene events are:

Harry meeting Draco at the Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions – this event does nothing other than set up Draco, but it’s needed so that Harry already knows what he thinks of Draco when the other boy shows up on the Hogwarts Express

Harry offering Ron his sweets – while this scene includes the moment where Harry first reads the name Nicholas Flamel, that’s not the point of the scene. The point is to bond Harry and Ron as friends and to show that Harry has a kind heart.

Snape making fun of Harry by showing all he doesn’t know – a scene that does little more than show us that Snape really doesn’t like Harry

Bonus moments and bits of dialog are things that are added to a scene in order to develop a character. These are things like:

“The Great Humberto’s on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television.” – Dudley Dursley

“I’m not Fred, I’m George. Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother?” – Fred Weasley

Neville coming around the Hogwarts express looking for his toad.

“I hope you’re pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed – or worse, expelled.” – Hermione Granger

“And the Quaffle is taken immediately by Angelina Johnson of Gryffindor – what an excellent Chaser that girl is, and rather attractive, too…” – Lee Jordan

Fred and George stealing Percy’s prefect badge and having him chase them down to get it back.

All of these actions or lines could have only come from the characters that did or said them. They feel right when you read them. Have Harry say Lee’s lines or Hermione steal Percy’s prefect badge and, no, that would be wrong. That’s why these things are so important. They’re the little things that add flavor to a character and make them feel like a real person.

Offhand mentions are the least common way to go about character development. They’re things that one character mentions about another in order to develop the character who’s being mentioned. Some examples are:

Uncle Vernon mentioning that his sister hates Harry

Dumbledore mentioning that the Weasley twins tried to send Harry a toilet seat

Okay, I think that about wraps up this bit on character development. Hopefully it’s given you something to think about in regards to your own writing and, as always, feel free to ask questions about anything I’ve written here or in my other posts.