Happy 26th Birthday Harry Potter

[pbray]

Of course in JK Rowling's world it's still 1997, and we're waiting for book seven when Harry will turn 17.

As writers we can take note of what happens when you put specific dates in your books. When JK Rowling started writing in 1990, the dates she used were contemporary. By the time the first book was published in 1997, it referred to Harry being 11, which would place the events in 1991.

Fortunately the time gap isn't a big deal, since the majority of the action takes place in the magical world, and thus there's no need to account for the differences between 1997 and 2007. But if this were a conventional series such date specificity could be a problem.

Comments

you don't know me, but

[strangerian.livejournal.com]

In surfing through LJs recently, I saw someone recommend your Devlin books. (Have bought the books, which look highly interesting.) And here I am, curious.

The most outre time-oddity I've seen in a book's setting is in the Dolly mystery series by Dorothy Dunnett. The books in general progress through time as the writing did. However, the sixth one centered on a young businesswoman, who as usual interacted with the series detective. A couple of hints in the narrative place the detective at a time *before* the earlier books in the series, even though the time of the world seems to have moved forward as usual from the fifth book. One becomes very puzzled, one does.

The Young Wizard series by Duane does have its work cut out to keep the slowly-maturing characters in sync with the passing present. Dairine's wizard manual-computer appears to be upgraded via magic as needed -- well, so do the paper-book manuals. This is actually closer to my real-world experience of seeing *somebody* with a new iteration of the personal hand computer every time I turn around, than most magic could be.

Re: you don't know me, but

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Hi, glad you stopped by!

Interesting point on the Dolly mystery series. It makes me wonder if the book was a "trunk manuscript"-- something she'd written before the others but for whatever reason didn't sell until later, and thus the inconsistencies between the character timelines and the world timelines.

I like what Duane has done with the series, but I'm sure she's had to give a lot of thought and put significant effort into the decisions that she's made.

It's funny how some things stay the same while others are constantly morphing. If you have your characters listening to a Top 40 radio station that works in the 70s as well as it works today, it's only the specific songs that change. But yesterday's Walkman is today's iPod, is tomorrow's who-knows-what?