01.04.06
Potter Fans Won’t Wait For Book 7
There’s an interesting project going on called HarryWiki.com. Basically, HarryWiki is an attempt by fans to beat J.K. Rowling to the punch and have a complete book 7 (or more than one) before she does. The project is open to anyone, so if you think you know how book 7 should be, head on over and write a few chapters or even just write one particular scene. The site’s creators say they will save everything in the hopes of having several different versions of book 7.
I have to say this is a particularly great use of wikis.
-->
weenie said,
January 5, 2006 at 6:20 pm
LOL - would be interesting to see how the books differ/are similar! Would one have Harry killed off whereas the other have him survive?
RavenclawWit said,
January 5, 2006 at 8:38 pm
I would imagine so. It’s a pretty neat idea, and I think it gives the more die hard fans a way to express their desires for how the series should end.
Michael said,
January 5, 2006 at 10:47 pm
The Potter Fan Fiction amazes me. Just seems like a big waste of time to write a 400 page book on something that will never be published about characters you didn’t create. Those people should put their effort into writing their own original story. I mean a 30 page HP story is one thing but 400 plus pages (and I have seen a few like this) is another.
JeFF said,
January 9, 2006 at 2:02 pm
Hi All-
In regards to Michael’s post (and all the following is meant in as friendly a manner as possible; I’d just like to address what I fear are some misconceptions about HarryWiki) - If this were just Carl or just me writing, I would possibly agree with your sentiments about characters we didn’t create and a story that will never be published. However,
1. This isn’t just one or two people writing. This will ideally be a large number of people trying to create one or more coherent novels. It’s the collective nature of the writing that we don’t think has been done before (and, to be honest, may not work, but that’s part of the experiment).
2. No, this won’t be “published” in the traditional sense, but every major version, every tweak, even every edit that is saved will be available for people to look at. That’s something that traditional publishing can’t do. We’re not in this for money, so the lack of “publication” doesn’t really bother us.
3. As far as original story and already-created characters- in order for a collectively-written story to work, we wanted to use a world that has personality, rules, etc. People have an idea of what Harry or Ron or Hermione would do in a given situation, or what Hogwarts is like, and that should actualy be beneficial as regards point number one. Rather than having to conduct, say, a series of polls (e.g. should there be just one main character? male or female?) or just letting it degenerate into chaos (e.g. several people writing a love story in Japan, several others a fantasy story on another planet, and still others a historical comedy in the Aztec Empire), we expect that something coherent will arise from this.
Hope that allays some of your concerns,
JeFF