
How J.K. Rowling Plotted Harry Potter with a Hand-Drawn Spreadsheet - yarapavan
http://www.openculture.com/2014/07/j-k-rowling-plotted-harry-potter-with-a-hand-drawn-spreadsheet.html
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SixSigma
Famous Authors’ Handwritten Outlines for Great Works of Literature

* James Salter’s outline for Light Years

* J.K. Rowling’s spreadsheet plan for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

* Joseph Heller’s chart outline for Catch-22

* Henry Miller’s manuscript plan for Tropic of Capricorn

* William Faulkner’s outline for A Fable — written on his office walls.

* Sylvia Plath’s outline for The Bell Jar

* Norman Mailer’s character timeline for Harlot’s Ghost.

* Part of Jennifer Egan’s plan for her short story “Black Box.”

* Gay Talese’s outline for his classic profile “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold”

[http://flavorwire.com/391173/famous-authors-handwritten-
outl...](http://flavorwire.com/391173/famous-authors-handwritten-outlines-for-
great-works-of-literature)

Personally, I use Scrivener -
[http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php](http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php)

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davidwtbuxton
Infamous Authors' Outlines for Great Works of Bad Literature

* Martin Amis' UML diagram for London Fields

* EL James' Balsamiq mockups for Fifty Shades Of Grey

* Dan Brown's PowerPoint decks for The Da Vinci Code

Couldn't resist ;)

Though clearly Balsamiq mockups are the odd one out since they are useful.

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tormeh
Actually, I really like Dan Brown's writing style. It really draws you in and
is really effective. The only problem is that Brown has only written one book,
really. All his novels have the same, highly specific format. It's only the
details that are different. The plot exposition, the characters etc are all
mostly the same.

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barrkel
Dan Brown's writing, at the sentence level, is infantile, and the dialogue is
didactic and patronising. I will never read another of his books.

Pacing is what Brown is good at. He knows how to end chapters with cliff-
hangers that make you want to keep on reading.

~~~
dangerboysteve
Totally agree but they are entertaining fast reads. Realistic dialog is always
lacking in his novels.

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jacalata
Realistic dialog, characterisation, plot, etc, is lacking. Sure, I've read
several, but they simultaneously annoy and entertain.

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smoyer
According to wikipedia (I know, I know) the definition of spreadsheet is:

"A spreadsheet is an interactive computer application program for
organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form." [1]

We drew grid charts in elementary school for a huge variety of reasons, but we
never did them on a computer (because we didn't have computers back then.
Spreadsheet software was (first) valuable as a calculation tool because it
replaced tedious accounting "worksheets" (also noted by wikipedia) but now I'm
curious what percentage of spreadsheets use the mathematic functions at all.
Most of those I see around software development are simply ways to organize
text.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spreadsheet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spreadsheet)

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pmelendez
From the same wikipedia article:

\---------------------

Paper spreadsheets

The word "spreadsheet" came from "spread" in its sense of a newspaper or
magazine item (text and/or graphics) that covers two facing pages, extending
across the center fold and treating the two pages as one large one. The
compound word "spread-sheet" came to mean the format used to present book-
keeping ledgers—with columns for categories of expenditures across the top,
invoices listed down the left margin, and the amount of each payment in the
cell where its row and column intersect—which were, traditionally, a "spread"
across facing pages of a bound ledger (book for keeping accounting records) or
on oversized sheets of paper (termed "analysis paper") ruled into rows and
columns in that format and approximately twice as wide as ordinary paper

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yaddayadda
My father was a CPA and was trained to use spreadsheets for things like
double-entry accounting.

The first time I ever saw a computer it was when he got a job where the
accountants had computers [1] and he was so excited to show me a "computer-
based spreadsheet" [2] and how it would do calculations automatically! Even
with the computer doing the calculations, he still insisted on double-entry.

[1] I remember visiting a very large room with raised floors; raised so that
the cooling system could do it's job properly. I believe he was actually using
a DOS system, so my memory of the computers being like big lockers must be of
tape-backups or something like that.

[2] i was a wee lad, but if memory serves, it was a predecessor to Lotus 1-2-3

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acheron
Likely Visicalc [1]?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visicalc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visicalc)

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sebgeelen
This describe a process used by J.K. Rowling to write the 5th HP book. Am I
the only one to think this is also the worse book in the series ?

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bookwormAT
Everything text is great if you listen to Stephen Frey reading it to you. But
I personally think the "Goblin of Fire" (the 4th?) is the worst.

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semperfaux
I have to wonder whether you either read some odd sort of knockoff of _Goblet
of Fire_ or whether you just weren't paying attention... ;)

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lmm
Who knows what the mysterious "Stephen Frey" is capable of?

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codeulike
Its well known that JK Rowling plotted broad outlines for all 7 HP books
before she wrote the first one - I'd like to see her notes from that, if she
has any.

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calinet6
Good systems = good quality.

Compare this to anything in your business that is brittle, and see what
benefit even a simple system can have on it.

~~~
harperlee
It would be interesting to know about the systems that followed prolific,
successful authors like Stephen King, Isaac Asimov or Agatha Christie...

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philmcc
In On Writing, by Stephen King, he goes into great detail about his writing
process.

The upshot is that he's what some writers call a "Discovery Writer", he sits
down at a blank page with an image, or rough idea, and just writes and sees
what happen. (George RR Martin/Game of Thrones is also, believe it or not, a
discovery writer).

I'm not familiar with Asimov's process, but based on Agatha Christie's genre,
I'd be surprised if she didn't structure hers fairly heavily.

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seanalltogether
Looking at the sheet reminds me that the novels had a nice rigid timeframe to
tell the stories in, and I imagine those constraints actually helped in the
planning process.

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Amorymeltzer
Man, I would LOVE to see George R.R. Martin's plot outline

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angersock
It'd just look like a bunch of git branches ending: dead, dead, dead, dead,
raped, dead, dead, dead, tortured, dead.

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zerohm
"Anyone who accuses someone of over plotting is a crappy no-name writer."

I LOL'd.

