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

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

This time specificity problem had come up in Sue Grafton's Alphabet mystery series. Her sleuth started sleuthing in the 80s or something but the stories happen more or less after each other timewise . . . which means that in the series it's like the early 90s, whereas it's actually being published this year.

[melissajm.livejournal.com]

Yesterday I was browsing in FoF, and picked up a book with a cover showing flying cars, space suits, etc, from the distant year of...2000.

Not so surprising, except that the book was published in the 1980's. It gave me an instant lesson in Why Never To Set A Futuristic Novel Within a Human Lifespan.

[janni.livejournal.com]

Although writing in the generic now can get one in trouble, too--I still remember a book where the heroine gets attacked by the bad guys as she's looking for a pay phone--and within a couple years of the writing, cell phones were common enough that someone in a high-risk job like hers would have had one as a matter of course.

[libwitch.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite series is the Young Wizardy series, which was only a trilogy, and written in the 1980s. Nina's favorite band was Reo Speedwagon, and her sisters wizard's manual was on an Apple.

Then the books started to appear on the "If you Like HP" lists, and she is now up to book 8 in the series. Poof! The characters are the same ages, but they have morhped 10-20 years in the future. Reo Speedwagon is no longer mentioned, and the Apple morphed into a laptop, pretty much on its own free will.

That said, I still manage to sell this series like crazy, with only a few words of warning about the time period in the first three books.

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.