i believe you should always have a general sense of where you're heading, but i think having the very last scene of the story written out before you even start is a horrible idea. you need to give yourself some room for change, unless you somehow manage to make everything you've written fit perfectly with the epilogue you wrote years ago. i think this may be why some people were disappointed in it, maybe somewhere along the lines of the plot, something changed, and now the epilogue that was written from the very beginning somehow just doesnt satisfy the readers. they expected something more. now if this is the case, it's not at all a bad idea. from the post i quoted it sounded like she used what she had first written for the epilogue before the whole thing even played out. and i just think that's a bad idea. you should at least give it a good rewrite, now that you have the entire plot in your head, and then you can decide which one you like better. the writing it out from the beginning part is not what i think is a bad idea, actually using it in your published work is what i think is a bad idea. sorry if thats what it came out as.
I always know what my writings are going to end with, and I usually write the ending first, as a goalpoint and way to keep me focused. Having an epilogue to focus on is a fine idea, but even if she had revised it 200 times for content, it looks like she hadnt ever revised that epilogue for its style... ever! I could have written it, and I would have done a better job.
Her revisions, from what I picked up in interviews, never really changed the plot elements - Harry was always going to live, they were always going to live happily ever after - but involved removing a lot of detail that she had in there at first (apparently the original epilogue gave the names of every new birth in the Weasley family in the twenty or so years between the end of the novel and the time of the epilogue). As for the epilogue being limiting to her writing, I don't think that's really true at all. It really doesn't mention a lot about what has happened in the books, and the only things that would have limited her in writing would be the decision not to kill any of those characters and to have the relationships work out the way they do, which still allows (obviously) for all of the other things she worked into the series.
in this case i can certainly accept it. i think it might have been a slightly bad idea to tell people this, now that i think about it, lol. i personally dont mind, but some people may have been disappointed when they find out there was really no chance of any of those characters dying. may have made all that suspense during the books seem meaningless now that you find out. no big deal though. most authors have characters marked for life and death beforehand, im just not sure how many of them reveal this afterwards... is that common?
I don't think it's a bad idea to have the ending of your story in mind as you work on the rest of it, but I do think it's a bad idea to admit that in an interview when the epilogue could use some improving. It's easy for me to believe that she wrote the epilogue before she wrote anything else because the rest of her writing is so good, it shows that she improved as she wrote. The epilogue, however...maybe she should have rewritten it after she finished, not to change what happened, but to make it match the style, tone, etc of the rest of the books.
I ADORED the epilouge. I wasn't even aware people hated it. I mean, it was pretty obvious Harry was going to live. Also, I loved how it showed that even though they're all older now, nothing has really changed, they're still friends and still the same. I love their kids, even though you couldn't tell their personalities from such a short bit. I liked the idea of it all coming full circle, as well as the final sentence: "The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well." It's finally the happy ending he NEVER had through his life. If you look through the series, Harry's got a lot of sad stuff that has happened to him. He deserved the happy ending.
I haven't actually read the books yet ( I know, shock horror - but her writing bored me when I tried many moons ago) but I do have a very big interest in J.K Rowling. Her life story really fascinates me - she's a lucky woman to have been recognised and come so far, and I think that if she's believed in something so vividly even when her financial state seemed hopeless, then she deserves every bit of success. So, I remember something she said in a documenary about her - she was talking about how books that she loved as a child inspired her style. When talking about one author, she said something like - 'And I always loved how she described their picnics - you always knew exactly what was in the sandwhiches'. I believe, from seeing snippets of the book and having seen the films of course, that she too likes to describe seemingly trivial things in great depth (Like the sweets, for example - I think she describes each individual type and flavour, am I right?). So, I think it's pretty much been her style from childhood to be very specific - so i'm not surprised that she liked to tie up all those loose ends. It's true that most readers like things to be left to the imagination, but then it's easy to forget that she never intended to write these books to suit the gratifications of her audiences - she also said in the documentary that she wouldn't change a single word to suit the audience, because it's her story. Good on her, I say. It's better than selling yourself out completely to suit people's requirements.
You make a very good point here. I suppose I just would have liked the ending a lot better if she and I had seen eye to eye. But in the end, it's her story; no one and nothing can change that, and I respect that. I found her to be a fantastic writer --for most of the series. The ending just seemed so trite and clichéd. For a series so epic, I didnt expect the same old "and they lived happily ever" resolution.
Well, it might've also been because the series was actually intended for a younger audience (labelled as reading for 9-12 year olds in waterstones) - she used the deaths of some of the well-loved characters to give it a sense of realism that her younger audiences could benefit from reading about (so that the series wans't sugar-coated I guess) but I think if she didn't let the younger audiences know that Harry finally gets to be happy, then it might've left them feeling a bit dark about it. I don't know, she probably never anticipated that she'd have such a massive adult audience as well as children (though of course, those kids would've grown up whilst reading the books weird) so I guess her main concern was writing with her original intentions for younger readers - I think she had the entire thing planned out from the begining. Can't please everyone I guess.
I completely agree with this. I loved the epilouge, it was a great way to show that Harry finally got the simple, but happy ending he wanted and deserved. Personally, I'm the kind of reader that will read a good book and then want to know what happens in the character's day to day lives afterwards, so I loved being able to read that in Harry Potter. Besides not every book/epilouge has to end with a sense of forboding or set up for a sequel; some just are done, and as much as I love Harry Potter, it's time for the story to be done and the epilouge showed that in the best possible way. Plus like other's have said, it's a wonderful thing for the fan fic writers, I've already seen a ton of different spin off's on the kids and their lives.
I personally am the same way. After the series ends, I find myself thinking what their lives are like now. A great author will leave you wondering after the last page. I personally love the idea described in the Inkheart series, that all stories don't begin at the beginning of the book and end at the ending. I like to believe that, like in Inkheart, they were always there, and some author just opened a door to let the ideas through.
It didn't seem like she took her time on that epilogue. There were plenty of stuff she needed to address in it as well and should've been a lot longer, felt unfinished.
I agree. I don't think including an epilogue was a bad idea, but it seemed like it was sort of dashed-off, definitely incomplete. It was a weak ending to a really great series, I thought.
I have a feeling I should go back and reread this epilouge. Truly, though, I thought it was a great idea, and I say good for her. I just wish she'd write other books that don't pertain to Harry Potter--although, when you've written 7 books on one topic, trying something different may be hard.
I didn't really like the ending as Hidden Novelist said. It was to dashed. Like she had to think of something quick to get it to the editor on time. Of course she had stated that she had written the epilouge well before writing the series. It's just to me was a bit of a disappointment. I read the rumours and the one that struck me was this character is going to be a Hogwarts teacher. I thought it was going to be Hermione (she is smart and very strict) alas she ran off with Ronald (who didn't see that one coming?) I thought perhaps Neville and Luna hook up but again that was meh, he got to be the teacher and marries Hannah Abbot and Luna goes off and marrys some unknown. To me it was like yep Harry hooks up with Ginny and Ron with Hermione happily ever after, married babies the lot with a little bit of humour directed at Draco.
You know what would have made the epilogue really fun? To find out that Snape was really, actually bad after all. Then to find out he was really good. Charlie
Truth be told, I neither love the epilogue nor hate it. I was happy that it had such a simple ending. I mean, the entire 7th book was a shocker because JK Rowling just piled every secret information without stopping for a breather. Heck, the fact that they got OUT of Hogwarts was disconcerting because I've always had the image of it being a safe sanctuary since I started reading it when I was five. The last book was brilliantly surprising but the ending sealed its fate as a classic. Also, I'm just happy that Malfoy didn't marry that Patty-whatever-her-name-is.
The epilogue would have been fine in an insipid but acceptable way... If JKR didn't go on about how she wrote it first before the series even began. That piqued my interest and sort of gave me the impression that the last scene would be very significant. I mean a few of her books are and I think shall forever be some of the best works of fiction I have ever read, and I was eager to see this pivotal, ultimate scene that was penned at the very birth of her magnificent series. And that is why for something so monumental, insipid but acceptable just wasn't so acceptable after all.
I was happy that Harry finally realized that Snape wasn't all bad, after all. It was a nice, yet unexpected, turnabout. I was shocked that Snape loved Lily--never saw that coming. But that's what I love about the HP series. Everything is so closely woven that all the books pertain to one another in some way (e.g., Riddle's diary being a Horcrux).
I love that. She's a master at quietly weaving things in that end up becoming monumental in the end. I never saw the Snape/Lily thing coming either, but I really liked it
