How to write like JK Rowling

(Please note: this post appeared on my original blog (Woman on the Edge of Reality, which no longer exists) in about 2013).

There are many reasons given for why JK Rowling’s series about Harry Potter worked its magic in such a universal way. Much has been written about how the story and plot appealed to both adults and children because of the core archetypal themes that ran through the series. However, I’d like to suggest there may be another, even simpler reason as to why the books were so popular.I believe they appealed to all five of our senses.

We each have preferred learning, reading and entertainment styles. We may be kinaesthetic, in other words, we feel the world around us; we may be auditory, in these cases we will hear the world around us, and we may be visual where we see the world around us. These styles are often reflected in the language we use to describe our experiences and ourselves. For example, the kinaesthetic person might tend towards language along the lines of “how did that feel?” An auditory person might say “how does that sound to you?” And those who are more visual might ask a question like “what does it look like?”.

Of course, we all use all of our senses all the time, and we may have different preferences according to what we’re doing but most of the time we’ll have a preference of one sense over the others, and this preference is often reflected in the way we speak and write. And if we have a preference, then it naturally follows that others do too. Just imagine how powerful a piece of communication might be if we were all speaking to each other using the same preferences, the risk of ambiguity reduces significantly and my suggestion is this is what JK Rowling does so well in the Harry Potter books.

If you read them carefully you’ll notices she uses language carefully to appeal to each pf the senses moving easily been the visual, audible, feeling and even the olfactory (smell) and gustatory (taste). In doing so she provides the ‘imagery’ that each preference prefers, helping them engage more effectively with the stories.

Perhaps the easiest way to emulate some of the success of these books lies in cultivating the ability to write outside the boundaries of our own natural preferences and appeal to those senses with which we aren’t so comfortable.

You can find out more about how to use the senses in writing (this is in sales letters, but the same rules apply in all writing) in the following SlideShare presentation from Carol Bentley, who presented this at a copywriters’ conference I attended a few years ago now.

For more about what made Harry Potter so appealing try the following resources:

• psychologytoday.com/blog/sex-murder-and-the-meaning-life/201107/what-s-the-real-secret-harry-potter-and-how-can-you-use-
• wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_influences_and_analogues

Please note: This post was originally published on my blog at WordPress.com in 2013. It has been revised and updated.