Lindsey Fraser - J K Rowling and the Harry Potter Phenomenon

Many thanks to Kathryn Ross and The Gifford Safe Haven, to Grainne Ballantyne (ne Cooney), Jane Churchill, Robert and Patrick Fraser, Alyx Price, Fraser Smith, Janet Smyth, Imogen Wilkinson, Sarah Wright and all those who talked with me about what the words Harry and Potter triggered in their brains.

WHO hasnt heard of Harry Potter? You may never have read the books, but the chances are youve seen one of the films, munched a handful of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans or played Harry Potter Top Trumps with your friends.

The seven novels and three related books by J K Rowling have resulted in a worldwide media phenomenon which includes translations of the books throughout the world, films, merchandise, food, toys, games, a Florida theme park, and a vast online community of fans, including writers of fan fiction who take the characters and the settings and launch them into a whole new range of adventures. And that phenomenon continues to expand. As long as there are new ways developed for us to entertain ourselves, Harry Potter and his friends will play their part.

That extraordinary story began with a book for children written by an author who had remarkable ambition and drive. Today J K Rowlings Harry Potter novels are available in 69 languages throughout the world, including Welsh, Irish, Latin and Ancient Greek. Its a tally that can only increase.

Harry Potter is a one-off.

There will be many splendid books written for young people in the future, but Harry Potter had a unique momentum driven by the children who first read the books, followed swiftly by business executives who knew a magical opportunity when they saw one.

Back in 1997, when Joanne Rowlings first novel was published, nobody could have predicted the popularity of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, or what happened next.

The author admits that she always privately believed that if she found a publisher, her books could be very successful. But even in her wildest dreams, Jo Rowling could not then have imagined just how successful. Within a few years, Hollywood directors would be beating a path to her door requesting her sketches, explanations and illustrations; samples of merchandising from Harry Potter spectacle frames to Hogwarts scarves to Harry Potter wands and even Moaning Myrtle lavatory seat alarms would be arriving for her approval (or disapproval);theme park designers from Universal Orlando Resort would be showing her diagrams of the town of Hogmeades, plans for Ollivanders (makers of fine wands since 382BC), and the popular Zonkos joke shop, and testing recipes for Butterbeer, the vanilla-flavoured drink which now refreshes visitors to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

Jo Rowling has remained at the heart of all these developments and activities. Everybody involved in taking the world of Harry Potter beyond the pages of the books had to pay close attention to her. She knows everything there is to know about that world and the characters who populate it. It is her world and they are her characters, and if anybody were to take non-Potterlike liberties with either, they would alienate her millions of readers and torpedo their potential market.

This book tells the story of the author, J K Rowling, and her books, how the publishing and bookselling worlds stepped up to the bar even when that bar kept being raised, how readers responded to the unfolding story, and how the landscape for childrens books has altered as a result of an idea that popped into somebodys head one day on a train from Manchester to London.

EVERYONES life is made up of stories of one kind or another. We choose our friends because their stories appeal to us. What music do they listen to? What do they read? How do they spend their spare time? What have we in common? What are their politics? Nobody has total control for example, we cant choose our parents but every day we make choices that influence how the next chapter in our lives unfolds, choices based on answers to the all-important What if? questions. What if I take this subject next year at school? What if I buy this laptop? What if I make friends with that crowd? What if I choose to read this book instead of revising for my exams?

That What if? question is central to the life of a writer too. What if I take what I know and give it a twist? What if I make it comic? A horror story? A fantasy? What if I set it in the here-and-now? The there-and-then? Another planet? Whether an author starts with a character, a setting, an idea or an opening sentence, their task is then to make the many decisions that drive their story on to its conclusion. They need to hold our interest, or we may stop turning the pages and turn out the light...

Every writer, published and unpublished, has a different way of working. Its a profession well known for specific demands and routines. But wherever they live and whatever implements they use, writers write and they write and they write. Then they read what theyve written, they check and edit, they reread the revised version, they re-edit it, and then they continue to write and edit until finally they read what theyve written and they decide, Its ready. It tells the story I want to tell.

J K Rowling has her own routines and preferences. She likes to write her stories in longhand in cafs and she makes copious notes, drawings and diagrams. She has said that because she didnt have a pen and paper with her on the train journey from Manchester during which the idea for Harry Potter eased its way into her imagination, the plot established itself very clearly.

I have never felt such a huge rush of excitement. I knew immediately that this was going to be such fun to write.

By the time she got off the train in London she had established the structure for her seven novels, several characters and much of the Hogwarts timetable the ideas had flooded her imagination, all ready to be written. After several false starts, she finally began to write the story that would make her famous.

Jo Rowling remembers writing her first book when she was six. She admits that it was a rip-off of the Richard Scarry books that she loved: it was about a rabbit called Rabbit, and she remembers wanting it to be published. I wanted the complete experience, even then. She was an enthusiastic reader, particularly encouraged by her mother, Anne, who loved books.