So am I the only one?

[girlyswot]

*looks round sheepishly*

Oh yes, I've been reading those spoilers/leaks/scans...

No, you're getting nothing from me.  Promise.

I think I've mentioned before that knowing what's going to happen doesn't affect my enjoyment of a book, except perhaps to relieve some of the initial scramble-to-get-through-it-as-quickly-as-possible-to-find-out-what-happens tension.  So I won't have to worry about that this time.  

Unless the spoilers are fake.

But here is an interesting thing I've noticed about people's response to the leaks.  A number of comments are about how these aren't 'JKR's style'.  Now, I haven't read the whole thing (too lazy) but what I have read strikes me as exactly JKR's style.  Which got me to wondering about the effect of having read fanfiction on one's actual reading of the book.

I wasn't in the fandom before HBP so I've never had this experience before.  How do the rest of you deal with it?  Do you get so used to thinking of the HP world in the style of your favourite fanfics that JKR's style seems jarring?  Do you long for stmargaretsHarry and Ginny, or for rhetoretician's?  Do you start to find JKR's writing childish compared to some of the more 'adult' fics you might have read?  Or do you find that actually, her writing does stand up to the test and sweep you away compared to the amateur things you've become used to?  Can you still spot 'JKR's style' amidst all the competing voices?

Comments

[stmargarets.livejournal.com]

LOL - I had heard about Snape killing Dumbledore before I read HBP - but when it happened, I was *still* in shock. So that's the power of narrative. I really forgot about my Harry once I started reading JKR's. I did smirk at how quickly JKR dealt with so many fan fic "issues" at the beginning of the book. Many post OotP authors spent pages on Sirius's will, Capslock!Harry, and Angst!Harry. And JKR just showed us a Harry who had come to terms with his pain off stage and in his own way.

As far as the shipping - I LOL at Ron/Lav-Lav - I really did. I thought for sure Hermione was going to be the one in a relationship - but I could see right away the wisdom of giving Ron his chance to make Hermione jealous. I wouldn't have had the guts to do that in fan fic (Look how angry some Quillers were about it), but I thought the whole thing was a hoot.

I loved Harry's first kiss with Ginny and I was very happy - until he broke up with her. Eeep! I think because I had put myself in Ginny's shoes so many times in fan fic, that it hit me harder. I was so upset. I think I read that last chapter about four times that day to wrap my head around it.

So I can't fault the Hermione writers for feeling bad about the Ron/Lav-Lav thread.

It's a very strange feeling to read new JKR after writing in her universe. You can just feel the foundations of your imaginative edifice tremble. LOL. Yes, TDU, even megalomaniacs notice when a bigger giant clears away the familiar landscape.

[tdu000.livejournal.com]

Yes, TDU, even megalomaniacs notice when a bigger giant clears away the familiar landscape

lol!

I think I've seen the spoiler that all the fuss is about. My gut reaction was "fake" but I don't really mind. It doesn't tell you why this happened and therefore doesn't really tell you very much. It's sort of like a Ron-Lavender leak from HBP. Any H-Hr shipper would have taken it as vindication that their ship was going to sail as Ron had been got out of the way with a minor character relationship. Instead it absolutely confirmed what was already obvious, that R-Hr was going to happen.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

I think I've seen much bigger spoilers than that, TDU. *grins*

[tdu000.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, this was way bigger than Ron-Lavender but there wasn't a why and so we still don't know how the story got to that point and that's what's interesting. I was just thinking of how many people would interpret this spoiler but how they could still be completely wrong about what had happened that lead to that point.

Any way, are you suggesting that this is bigger than which teenager goes out with which other teenager? Surely, that is far more important than destruction of Voldemeor and the fight between good and evil?

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

I'm suggesting I've seen much bigger chunks of actual book than you. Hundreds of pages. *grins*

[tdu000.livejournal.com]

Oh I see. Thatr, obviously, is a deliberate choice to read on your part. What I was getting at, is it isn't actually going to make a big difference to people who didn't want to be spoiled if they saw what I saw. Anyone who didn't want to be spoiled but read as much as you have really can't complain.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Quite right. And there sort of comes a point where you think, this isn't a spoiler any more, this is just reading the book.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Exactly! I'm glad you found that the narrative was strong enough to pull you in, despite what you already knew and the things you'd been imagining. We spend so much time believing we're in charge of the HP world that I can see why some fans struggle to accept that it actually belongs to JKR and that she can do what she wants with it.

I'm looking forward to the experience of reading this time.

[ladywhizbee.livejournal.com]

(*sticks head up*) I'm here too...but I haven't been over to check out the leak. I plan to stay away from it. I really *don't* want to know anything other than what we fans have dreamt up...which is quite a lot actually...

You know, it's funny...when I read HBP I wondered if fanfiction had tainted my view of it. The first moment when I felt this was when I read the second chapter (Spinner's End) for the first time -- I *felt* like I was reading fanfiction where (oddly) I didn't feel that way while reading chapter one. I think it had a lot to do with small details -- like the sisters calling each other by pet names (which are so familiar to fanfiction), and the unusual focus on Snape...those things really felt so much like fanfiction, but in truth I never lost sight of the fact that I was reading JKR.

And all the shipping! The magnitude of it -- Bill/Fleur, Tonks/Remus, Lav/Ron/Hermione, Harry/Ginny -- all combined in one story. When I read it for the first time (even Arthur's pet name for Molly! LOL) I remember thinking that it almost felt as if JKR had been glancing at all the fanfiction out there and felt a desperate need to end some of the ridiculous parings. LOL. And I must admit that there were definitely some moments, particularly with H/G, that I longed for good fanfiction where 'showing' rules over 'telling'...but alas HBP is not *really* a love story.

So yeah, in the end, I think fanfiction did taint me a bit, but really I never lost sight of the fact that I was reading *JKR* -- and that really was the most important thing.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's the thing I was wondering about - does it feel like reading fanfic? Do you feel the 'right' to critique it like you would with other people's fics? So I'm glad to hear that you never lost sight of the fact that this was canon, and thus different.

[gabrielladusult.livejournal.com]

I came to the internet fandom after seeing the POA movie and reading GOF -- so I read a bunch of OotP stuff before reading it. Not spoilers, since the book had been out for quite a while -- but it spoiled it for me -- I enjoyed that book the least of any of them wading through pages to get to passages I already knew about.

I accidentally saw a spoiler about Dumbledore dying for HBP (but not that Snape killed him) on my flist while waiting for my book to arrive. I told myself it was a cruel joke, but I knew Dumbledore dying in the 6th or 7th book made literary sense so I wasn't surprised and didn't feel spoiled when it happened.

I'm going to do my best to avoid spoilers this time (though once I have book in hand, I can't guarantee I won't flip ahead -- I'll try to be strong, though).

I love Mary's universe and her imagination. I'm going to be her biggest fan when she writes an original fic! But it's JKRs world, and I think she knows what she's doing and it shows to me when I'm reading one of her books.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

That's interesting that you felt that way about OotP. I can see why you'd want to avoid spoilers after that.

And I'm glad to hear that you can still tell it's JKR's world when you're reading her books. That shows a real strength in her writing.

[rhetoretician.livejournal.com]

Hey, Ros. I can guarantee that I don't wish JKR's Harry and Ginny were more like Rhetoretician's. *shudder* Talk about schizoid... Anyway, I'm not sure I know what "Rhetoretician's" Harry and Ginny are like; Mary claimed that she recognized them immediately when she saw them in Quartet, and I still haven't had the courage to ask her what that meant.

Seriously, though, we're all different writers. JKR isn't St Mags, nor Antosha, nor (thankfully) me. (But how flattering to be compared that way! Gosh, you're good for my ego!) When I read Mary's stuff it's because I like the way Mary writes; when I read JKR's stuff, it's because I like the way she writes. JKR has the added advantage of controlling the canon, which means that what she does to her characters will have more emotional impact on me than what the rest of us do, and she's also been writing for a lot longer than most of us, which means she has more tricks up her sleeve. And also, it's been a lot of fun for me to watch her grow as a writer.

But would I be able to tell whether something is "authentically" JKR, the way you, Mary, Annette, Bel, Rachel, etc. were able to tell that Quartet was authentically me? I don't know. I think I have the flavor of her style, but I don't especially feel like putting myself to that test. In four days I'll have the book in my hands, and I'll be both eager and reluctant to open it. Part of me dreads the finality.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

I think the point about everyone being different writers was what I was really trying to get at. Normally when I read a book I only associate those characters and that universe with one writer. But with HP I associate them with lots of different writers, each with their unique style and aim. So I find it interesting to think about how it will feel reading the original author again.

I think you're right that JKR has grown as a writer, and of course she's been doing it for longer and has produced a much larger oeuvre than most (all?) of us. So I am looking forward to seeing what she does. And I hope I won't be thinking 'Oh but in New Zealand Chronicles, Harry...' or 'But what about Counting to Five Thousand?'

[tdu000.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I recognised your "authentic voice". I saw the title and thought you were one of the very few writers whose music tastes would lead you to write that particular story (now if it had been a song fic based on a Britney Spears' song, I wouldn't have bothered reading). When reading it, I decided that as it was a complicated theme successfully pulled of, well-written and with good characterisation, it pretty well had to be your story.

Bel