These days, J.K. Rowling is a household name all over the world – the first billionaire author on the planet and the creator of a world that many of us can’t imagine life without. But how did unpublished writer Joanne Kathleen Rowling turn into this superstar? Read J.K. Rowling’s best book writing advice:
J.K. Rowling on writing: 5 top writing tips
1. Write in whatever time you have
One of J.K. Rowling’s most famous quotes is: “Sometimes you have to get your writing done in spare moments here and there.” This is crucial advice on writing a book. It’s easy for us to imagine successful writers spending all day penning beautiful paragraphs, but everybody had to start somewhere. For Rowling, that somewhere included full-time work and finding stolen pockets of time to write. Much as it might be a dream to take six months out to write your book, odds are you’re going to have to fit it into your everyday life.
2. Planning is essential
Instead of diving right into line 1, J.K. Rowling advises taking the time to plan out the world your books will live in. She took five years to create and develop every last detail of the Harry Potter world. Every part of Rowling’s books was planned and work out, right down to how the Wizards and Muggles interacted (and the word Muggles, to begin with!) what the education was like, how magic helped in every day life and how the wizarding world of government worked. She also plotted out all the events of the seven books before she started writing the first.
Even J.K. had a Plan
Start planning your story in easy steps, and get webinars on craft and feedback when you upgrade.
START
3. Rewriting is just as essential
You would think after five years, J.K. Rowling would just be able to dive right in and write the whole of the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, without much rewriting. She rewrote the opening chapter of her first book a total of fifteen times, however. It’s easy to imagine published authors writing with the greatest of ease, but actually the process is just as difficult for them.
4. Be aware of plot and pacing
Even when you’ve plotted out all seven of the books you want to write in a series, you can trip yourself up. In fact, that’s one of the big things to be aware of when you’ve done the necessary planning: even though you know what’s going to happen next, your readers shouldn’t. They need to have a sense of excitement and uncertainty as the plot and pacing unfolds because this is where magic lies. After J.K. Rowling finished the first book in the Harry Potter series, she realised she’d given away the whole plot of the series. So she had to rewrite it, and hold back a number of integral plot points.
5. Write your passion
Perhaps my favourite J.K. Rowling quote is: “What you write becomes who you are… So make sure you love what you write!” One of the reasons the Harry Potter books are so infectious is because you can tell she really loves the world she created – and all the characters in them. If you’re going to approach your book in a half-hearted manner, there’s no point even beginning it. Make sure you’re passionate about what you write and you’ll draw your readers along with you. Write like Rowling and create a fantasy world full of magic!
Ready to write the next Harry Potter? Now Novel is the easy way to write a book. Try our story builder – a step-by-step way to outline your novel. You could join J.K. Rowling in the ranks of the published authors.
37 replies on “Five great writing tips from J.K. Rowling”
[…] world of Harry Potter over 5 years, while raising a child on the side, squeezing in time to write whenever possible. « Sometimes you have to get your writing done in spare moments here and there. […]
[…] and ongoing edits, even JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, claims to have written 15 drafts of the opening chapter of her first book. The key to the entire process is […]
J.K. Rowling took over five years, beginning in 1990, she began to plan out the seven Harry Potter books in the series. Hard to believe she wrote in longhand. Not sure we’d all have that kind of dedication or the time to plan like her.
Just a reminder that JK Rowling never created the Muggle.