Writing That Seventh Book: The Writing of “Harry Potter 7”

“This is it.” Little Joanne Rowling took one last look in the mirror. Being English, her face was as white as a corpse, so all she needed to do was slip into her Grim Reaper outfit. She was now in the proper mood to pen her final masterpiece. “First things first — let’s get wicked shitty,” she said to herself, pouring six fingers of gin into a tumbler. “Ahhh, Vitamin G,” she sighed, “my true muse.” “Now for the title: Harry Potter and the some really dark, emo, depressing-sounding magical object… Whatever it is, it’s gotta be serious, and it’s gotta have something to do with blackness… the night… death… Harry Potter and the Insane Clown Posse… no, no, that’s not right– he’s never been a Juggalo in the past, and no one likes that much orange soda anyways. Harry Potter and the Gothly… still not there. Harry Potter and the Deathly… deathly… fuck this, I’ll figure it out later.”

With a title evoking some really scream-o sad feelings like a Chris Carrabba song, and a final showdown in the works, Joanne knew she’d have to ice plenty of bitches in this bookk (two ‘k’s, for a double-dose of this killa writing $hit). “So, who am I gonna off this time?” she wondered. “A few good guys? Lupin or Tonks, no, Lupin AND Tonks after they’ve married and had a baby so it’s a triple tragedy. And then maybe I’ll include some of Peter Singer’s ethical writings to make the writer feel better, since it’s really only a double tragedy. And to make it really hit home, I’ll kill off a few favorites… how about the Weasley twins? Well, at least one of them. But I suppose if I kill off one twin, the other has to die. Wait, no, I decided not to make them Siamese twins. Stupid, stupid Joanne! Way to shit the bed! And Dobby, of course, but he was always a Yoda rip-off anyway. Oh! and Harry’s GOT TO die. There has to be a happy ending, though, because children these days are little bitches, so he’ll come back to life. Wait, that’s outlawed… uh… aha! He’ll be WILLING to die, about to die, and everyone THINKS he’s dead, but he doesn’t actually die, because he defeats death by not being afraid to die! PSYCHE, YOU JERKOFFS! Okay, well that doesn’t make any sense, but at least I didn’t shit on a manuscript and send it in… but there’s an idea!” After a few self-congratulatory whoops, some celebratory C-walking, and a couple (15) shots of Hypnotiq, Joanne took a deep breath and got to work.

Now Joanne was a method writer, and she liked to have everything nicely planned out. But first she got really crunk on beers and whiskey. Once nicely fucked on ethyl alcohol she started by reviewing her last six books so she could get a good idea as to what story threads needed to be tied up, what characters she could use, and what seemingly insignificant details she could exploit to create the illusion of a well thought-out saga. “Ass!” she exclaimed. “Writing is really fucking hard. Okay… the dead brother should have a deeply moving story of redemption. And Percy’s gotta come back to lots of hugs and kisses. And I’ve gotta bring Draco back to the light. Am I missing anyone? Oh yeah, the asshole house-elf! He’ll spend a chapter or two telling the dead brother’s story, and then he’ll turn nice, but only right before a Yakuza hitman comes to off him. And Ron’ll turn mean because the whole loyal friends thing is really getting old. There has to be a falling out… Then Ron’ll go off to the Valley to become a porn star– Long Ron Silver. Or maybe not. But first off: what the hell is up with Snape? Why did I even give all these characters such shitty, nonsensical names anyhow? Oh, that’s right, I was fucking drunk.”

Joanne then spent the next few hours blowing lines of coke off of a Chippendales’ dancer, then proceeded to create a head-sized hole in the wall. That’s when it hit her. “BALLS!” she shouted. “Snape’s madly, eternally in love with Harry’s mom! It explains EVERYTHING! He’s on the side of good because she is, but he hates Harry because he’s living proof of his inability to tap that ass! Those pansy teenagers will LOVE it! And it’ll all be revealed as soon as he dies, and Harry finds out by… by… oh shit.” She got up, shotgunned a Red Bull, hit some meth, sat down, and pulled out half her hair. Then, finally, she said, “Oh screw it. I’ll just have all his thoughts spill out as soon as he dies so Harry can just read his mind. As long as I use plenty of ellipses… I should… be able… to pull… it off…”

Joanne spent the next few months drafting a story that had it all: a wedding, a bank robbery, a government infiltration, a brilliant plan involving decoys, forgotten pasts, a forbidden romance, a secret hideout, Nazis, Tom Cruise, legends that turned out to be true stories, ghosts, angst, abandonment, Survivor: English Wilderness, deaths, ultimate battles, and more tragic heroes. She invented a few things that had never been heard of before but wove them in with well-known things so as not to make the reader feel like things were coming out of the blue and made sure her story lines were all neatly tied up. By the time she got to the end, she was so completely hungover and strung out that she decided just to tack on that last sentence she’d written years ago just to hurry up and finish. “There,” she said. “I think I’ve had enough writing for now.”