# How to make a story that's not too similar to Harry Potter?



## Kittie Brandybuck (Mar 5, 2021)

I'm kinda busy working on a different story right now, but i've been working on a story about a young witch who goes to a magic school called Ellsford academy for young witches and wizards. My only problem right now is that i'm a bit worried that i'll be accused of copying, so i'd like some advice on how to make my story different from Harry Potter. Any suggestions?


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## Let's Light Universe (Mar 5, 2021)

I think that an easy way to distinguish your work from Jk's is by introducing, perhaps, the idea that witches and wizards are not equally the same in all but gender. I've read somewhere that a witch is more like a medicinal healer. Maybe consider having it be a school of mages or something of the like so that it doesn't sound like just another boarding school like Hogwarts? Just a mere thought. I've seen witch, wizard, warlock, mage, etc defined as different things by different sources, so you could probably get away with using whichever terms you'd like and bending it to fit into what you're wanting it to be.


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## Queshire (Mar 5, 2021)

The best way would likely be to change the way magic is treated in society. Imagine a victorian/steam punk type setting where magic users are finding themselves rendered obsolete by the industrial revolution? Or one like the X-men where magic users are hated & feared and the school provides a sanctuary. Changing the cultural inspiration can also help. The webcomic Witchy features wands, brooms and even a witch burning, but places in it a setting inspired by South East Asia instead of Europe.


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## Prince of Spires (Mar 5, 2021)

Make her not live underneath the stairs...


On a more serious note, I agree that setting / worldbuilding is the big thing. If there are no muggles but everyone can do magic for instance. Harry Potter very much focusses on an idealized version of the United Kingdom. So set it somewhere else. Have the boarding school be a techno-submarine which sails between Australia and Japan during the 14th century. Or something similarly different. Make the magic different from wave-a-wand. Or maybe they don't so much teach magic at the boarding school but rather just school stuff and the magic is a side-thing (I always wonder, didn't wizards learn maths or foreign languages or sports...). I would go wild with the setting.

Having said that, if you write a story about a kid going to magical boarding school then you will be compared to Harry Potter. There is no getting around it. I remember reading a comment from Terry Pratchett. One day he received a letter from a Harry Potter fan accusing him of stealing Hogwarts and using it for the Unseen University in AnkMorpk, as well as several characters. I think Pratchett kindly pointed out that he came up with the idea some 14 years before Rowling. So, don't worry about it and write the story you want to write. As long as you don't actually copy Harry Potter you will be fine.


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## Chasejxyz (Mar 6, 2021)

The biggest way to make your story different is to make EVERYONE trans. The school is truly multicultural (like, you know, modern England actually is) and you actually see students celebrating Hannukkah and non-Christian holidays. The students learn about magic from all over the world and it's all treated as valid and good. Your werewolves aren't an allegory for AIDS and your characters don't defend slavery. 

Anyways, JKR wrote herself into a serious corner when she decided each book would be 1 school year, because it means that the Big Problem happens towards the end of the school year. Like imagine stressing out about finals at the end of the year AND you know some crazy magic thing is going to happen and people are going to die. And then Gryiffindor wins the house cup because they saved everyone's lives, again! So every book is very same-y in that regard, learn from her mistakes and have the stories be as long as they need to be, not arbitrarily a certain span of time. Also the students really don't LEARN anything, just magic. Did anyone take algebra? What about regular history? What if someone actually wants to be an electrical engineer when they grow up? Have your school be an actual school and not just a cool setting where things can happen.

HP is an MG book, so all the characters are that age, and the problems they have (and run into) are the problems an average MG reader would have. Even though they turn into high schoolers towards the end, they're not doing typical high school stuff like serious dating. There's never going to be a teen pregnant wizard because the idea of anyone having sex doesn't fit the target audience. But if your wizard school is about high schoolers and is YA/NA, then you can go in that direction, and your teens/young adults will be using magic for the sorts of things people use at that age. Between the polyjuice potion and an honest to god "love potion" in Harry Potter, it would be very, very easy to have things turn into Law and Order SVU, but would never happen in HP because of the target audience. 

What is your target audience? What kind of story do you want to tell? What is your character like? What about the school is critical to your story?


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## Unknown (Mar 7, 2021)

So what if you have a young witch in a magic school? This in and on itself does not make your story an Harry Potter copy. I actually would like very much to read more magic high school stories and am really dissapintement that there aren't more of them. Look at epic fantasy- you have so many books with the same stereotypical dragons/dwarves/elves... A magic higschool is nothing compared to that. I really think that as long as you write your original story that you really want to tell it will be OK.


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## MrNybble (Mar 7, 2021)

It all really depends on the overall plot. Things can happen at a school or happen because of the school. I'm working on a story that starts in magic school, but doesn't revolve around it. This school is for people that get magic later in life. So people from all ages, backgrounds, and races attend. Unlike childern school where school is their life, these people have a life and now must attend a school. There are dozens if not hundreds of ways to teach people how to use magic. If the target reader is still in school, you can't get to crazy about none standard schools if you want the young reader to relate.


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## skip.knox (Mar 7, 2021)

>a young witch who goes to a magic school called Ellsford academy for young witches and wizards.
Well, it's already different with your premise. Now it's just a matter of *how* different you want it to be.

You might give this a consideration: try making it as much like Harry Potter as you can. It won't work. Yours will be different, even unintentionally. Then you can take a hard look at see where you've imitated but you don't like the results, letting you introduce changes deliberately. The key here is that the changes you make will be because they're important to the *story* rather than trying to introduce changes just for the sake of the change.

Once it's all done, you can show it to others. If they say it's too much like Harry Potter, you can take a hard look at still more changes. Honestly, though, I think you'll find it's impossible for you to imitate too much. Your own voice, your own concerns and preferences will come through.


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## Malik (Mar 7, 2021)

Write it from a different POV.

Somebody for the love of God write one of these "wizard academy" stories from a teacher's POV. Imagine the teachers' lounge at a wizard academy. Imagine the parent-teacher conferences. Imagine grading homework.

Someone please write about a teacher of sorcery who has to keep getting her idiot students out of trouble. Show me all the conversations involving the word "frankly" when the headmaster discovers one of this teacher's students is The Chosen One and she's like, "hey, that's great, but I have twenty-nine other kids to worry about, so . . ." and all of them make our concepts of "gifted" and "special needs" look like child's play. Someone please write _that. _I'd buy it.


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## Malik (Mar 7, 2021)

My WIP is already getting comparisons to _Stargate_ because it's about a modern-day Special Ops team and a couple of archaeologists exploring a fantasy world.
_
But . . ._ I put a spin on it: _Stargate _gets almost literally every single thing wrong about the military, and I'm career military.

So my counter is, "Imagine a _Stargate_ novel with graphic sex and violence written by Tom Clancy." And that shuts people up, and gets them interested.

So, I mean, find a spin. What did Rowling miss? Start there.


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## Prince of Spires (Mar 8, 2021)

Malik said:


> Somebody for the love of God write one of these "wizard academy" stories from a teacher's POV. Imagine the teachers' lounge at a wizard academy. Imagine the parent-teacher conferences. Imagine grading homework.


I just thought of the same thing actually. That would be a great story. It just wouldn't be YA but adult fantasy. But there's so much potential here. I now actually want to write that story. I even already have a setting kicking around in my head which would fit this story.

_Must finish other project first.... Must resist temptation to run after the next shiny new project...

_


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## Queshire (Mar 8, 2021)

Well gee, now I feel like i'm jumping on the bandwagon by saying I thought the same thing.

In my case it'd be a mix of Harry Dreseden style urban fantasy with Harry Potter.

The protagonist is a supernatural detective in the vein of Harry Dresden or John Constantine. She's hired to investigate the spat of incidents that happen at the magic academy. You know how things go at magic academies after all, but she has to investigate it discreetly. That means going undercover as a teacher.

The pay is good, but it means getting dragges back into all the politics and ancient & noble houses of wizarding society. Hell, avoiding all that had been half the reason she fucked off to a crappy apartment in the city to begin with.

The other half was avoiding her ex-girlfriend. Unfortunately that Ex is now her client and a fellow teacher.


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## Miles Lacey (Mar 8, 2021)

The _Harry Potter _series was little more than the traditional British boarding school stories that had been very popular until about the 1960s when boarding schools began to fall out of favour with most British parents.  The genre was dead and buried by the 1970s.  Rowling added magic and other fantasy elements to those boarding school stories and resurrected that genre in the process.

One of the most radical changes that could be made is to ditch the almost idyllic view of school life as shown in _Harry Potter _and introduce a more gritty, real life school environment where magical students have to deal with more than teachers of the dark arts trying to kill or otherwise harm or obstruct the Chosen One.  Abusive parents, dates gone bad, drug and alcohol use and abuse, exam pressures, peer pressure, eating disorders, reckless driving, wagging, misusing magic both within and outside school, teacher's pets etc would certainly make a change from the sanitized school life of Hogwarts!

Telling the story from the point of view of someone who isn't the Chosen One would add a very distinct flavour as well.


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## Penpilot (Mar 8, 2021)

If you have kids learning magic at a magic school, no matter what, it's going to get compared to Harry Potter. You can't control that. Just based on that fact, people will say you're copying/ripping-off/etc. 

What you can do is focus on the story you want to tell. What makes it unique to you? Why are you the only person that can tell this story? The person you are, the perspectives you have on the world, and how you imbue those things into your story, those are the things that will make the story unique, not broad elements that can and will show up in many-many different stories. 


A bunch of years ago, I had this idea for a story after seeing a documentary on the Great Wall of China. It was about a land surrounded by a wall that is supposed to keep the lands safe from mythical creatures called the Others. While outlining it, a friend kept pushing me to read a Game of Thrones because the TV show was just starting. I'm sure most know the wall and the Others  is a key element a Game of Thrones.

As you can imagine, I'm in the middle of reading this book while planning my story, and I get to the point where these things are mentioned, and I let out the loudest F-bomb one could imagine. BUT, my story isn't a Game of Thrones. It's something different, so I wrote it any way.

So then fast forward to this past year. I'm putting the last touches to the first draft of my current book. It tells the story about the supposed last dragon in the world. I was going to call it the Last Dragon. Straightforward enough, right? Then I hear about Disney's new movie Ray and the Last Dragon. *Sigh* What'cha going to do? But again my story isn't the same as that story, at least what I can tell from the trailers. 

Control what you can control. Focusing too much on the things you can't, IMHO, it's just wasted energy.


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## S J Lee (Mar 8, 2021)

Everything has been done before - the question is can you do it well, and maybe just a LITTLE differently.

EG - a cover letter pitch "Like Harry Potter, but darker, for grown-ups, set in the Middle Ages" might actually work wonders - at least I can visualise what it is...whether I WANT that or not is a different matter, but someone should, surely? EG, Nothing wrong with pitching a tale as "Jane Eyre in space" or "Like Frankenstein, but a god is creating flawed superhumans to rule over a newly-created universe"

Don't call the school such a similar name? Call it "The Hall of Discipline" or something.
Don't call them "witches" learning "magic" - call them "students" or "candidates" learning "the power" or "the art"

Don't make it portal fantasy - set it on a "different world" world where we don't have to worry about "But why doesn't an evil wizard nod to his 5 muggle goons he turned invisible, who pull out AK7s and shoot the rival wizard from different sides without any bloody yakk or warning?"

AND don't make it English middle-class-ish schoolkids in a bloody faux-gothic boarding school. Orphans who have been adopted into a large family, by a commune of polyamorous trans (OR SHAPESHIFTING!! INCLUDING GENDER!) adults ... who have a secret ... who REALLY killed the parents of such talented children, whose power would have gone to waste if they had not met teachers at a suitable age, before they turned ten? Hmm......


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## LAG (Mar 9, 2021)

I've always imagined Hagrid like a sorta groundskeeper, to write as a janitor or beastmaster might be interesting.

Hmmm... WIzardry University, where the students use levitation to do keg stands, summon eldritch horrors to haze new students, sneak into the dragon pens to do bong rips. There must be a parody like this out there.

In regards to OP, you're not creating an HP fanfic, so go wild with your own ideas. School trips into other dimensions, entire curriculum devoted to communication with and control of insects, teacher's union strikes, parent involvement as someone here noted(Why did my Charlie come home with a frog morphed into his forehead? Why doesn't the school cafeteria have a vegan option? A wyvern sharted on my car, and my insurance doesn't cover it, I want damages damn you or I'm pulling Sandy out!)


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## The Dark One (Mar 11, 2021)

The protagonist is the Rejected one - a dyslexic schoolgirl who causes accidental carnage every time she tries to cast spells so the story begins with her expulsion.

She's gonna show em though!

Over to you...


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## S.T. Ockenner (Mar 15, 2021)

Prince of Spires said:


> Having said that, if you write a story about a kid going to magical boarding school then you will be compared to Harry Potter. There is no getting around it. I remember reading a comment from Terry Pratchett. One day he received a letter from a Harry Potter fan accusing him of stealing Hogwarts and using it for the Unseen University in AnkMorpk, as well as several characters. I think Pratchett kindly pointed out that he came up with the idea some 14 years before Rowling. So, don't worry about it and write the story you want to write. As long as you don't actually copy Harry Potter you will be fine.


Oh my. Children these days.


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## Mad Swede (Mar 15, 2021)

The Dark One said:


> The protagonist is the Rejected one - a dyslexic schoolgirl who causes accidental carnage every time she tries to cast spells so the story begins with her expulsion.
> 
> She's gonna show em though!
> 
> Over to you...


Um, speaking as a dyslexic person, thats not how dyslexia works. The fact that we have trouble reading and writing doesn't mean we can't pronounce or write things correctly. Reading and writing just takes more time. So no, that won't work as a concept.


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## Rosemary Tea (Mar 15, 2021)

S J Lee said:


> Don't call the school such a similar name? Call it "The Hall of Discipline" or something.


 That sounds like a reform school. Would make for a very, very dark story. I don't know if that's what the OP is after, but it wouldn't be that similar to Harry Potter!


S J Lee said:


> Don't call them "witches" learning "magic" - call them "students" or "candidates" learning "the power" or "the art"


 Even Hogwarts students are called students. What are the characters in OP's story going to be called when they grow up? If it isn't something like "witch" or "mage," then it may not sound like a magic user at all. I suppose the story could be designed more subtly... the witches could be euphemistically known as artists... but the question is, does that work well with OP's intention?


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## skip.knox (Mar 15, 2021)

I like student as a term. It comes from _studere_, which means to be eager. I liked casting myself as an amateur student (in conscious contrast to "professional student", a common derogatory phrase from my youth) -- one who loves to be eager.


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## S.T. Ockenner (Mar 15, 2021)

I'd say you should stick to terms referring to magic users. It would be too confusing for the reader if you never used words to separate them from others...unless everyone uses magic?


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## The Dark One (Mar 15, 2021)

Mad Swede said:


> Um, speaking as a dyslexic person, thats not how dyslexia works. The fact that we have trouble reading and writing doesn't mean we can't pronounce or write things correctly. Reading and writing just takes more time. So no, that won't work as a concept.


Don't call it dyslexia then - call it anything you like, but give her a challenge.


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## S J Lee (Mar 15, 2021)

A dojo/dojang apparently means "place of the way" , literally?


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## Queshire (Mar 15, 2021)

The Dark One said:


> Don't call it dyslexia then - call it anything you like, but give her a challenge.



Yeah... ... ... I don't reccomend taking this attitude as a writer when it comes to disabilities.


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## A. E. Lowan (Mar 15, 2021)

This Ted Talk has been going around for a while lately and now seems a good time to bring it out again. I'm not your inspiration, thank you very much

Short answer: Don't want to make another Harry Potter? Don't. The work has so very much to offer that a scarred young wizard is only a drop in the bucket. Check out talks like Ted, blogs like Writing With Color, and The Mighty. Tell the stories that don't often get told. Tell about fierce space waitresses who save the universe. About foretold heroes who aren't very good at the job. Tell stories about complicated, unlikable women, about stable hands who were never chosen for any great feat.

Tell the stories that don't often get told. Tell them with bravery.


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## The Dark One (Mar 16, 2021)

Queshire said:


> Yeah... ... ... I don't reccomend taking this attitude as a writer when it comes to disabilities.


Really? So what exactly is my attitude, given I deliberately avoided the word disability.


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## Mad Swede (Mar 16, 2021)

The Dark One said:


> Really? So what exactly is my attitude, given I deliberately avoided the word disability.


As a dyslexic, I wanted to avoid this discussion because it risks getting out of hand really fast.

What you, like most non-disabled people, don't understand is that you (and they) have a series of preconceived ideas and predjudices about what we as disabled people are capable of. That isn't usually deliberate on your and their parts, but for those of us who are disabled it can come across as ignorant and patronising.

When you wrote that the character might be facing expulsion because they couldn't pronounce spells correctly as a result of their dyslexia you implied that we dyslexics can't read, write or speak properly. I hope that wasn't intentional on your part. 

By implying (even accidentally) that we dyslexics can't read, write or speak properly you contribute to and amplify the picture of us dyslexics as stupid and incapable of doing things as well as other people. Not to put too fine a point on it, I find that ignorant and offensive. Very offensive. Trust me when I say that I got more than enough of that attitude when I was at school. I don't want to see it in published writing.

So my advice to you and others is never to use a disability in the way you suggested, not in any of your writing.


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## Queshire (Mar 16, 2021)

The Dark One said:


> Really? So what exactly is my attitude, given I deliberately avoided the word disability.



Having a disability be just a challenge to toss a characters way like it's a hurdle in a race or a dragon to slay.

Technically not using the word disability doesn't buy you much when you suggest not!dyslexia.


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## The Dark One (Mar 16, 2021)

Okay, so when you guys have finished judging me, you might note that my original suggestion (in a bit of fun) was about creating a character beyond the usual mainstream tropes. After being called out on dyslexia (which is fine Mad Swede) I then suggested that you give the character any sort of challenging situation that causes accidental carnage. I so specifically avoided the word disability after MS's post.

I very rarely say anything about myself on these forums but FYI, I'm a lawyer who has worked in disability for years, and understand very keenly (and have advocated on) these issues. For what it's worth the zeal of some people wanting only the best outcomes for those who need consideration can come across as unattractive passive aggression sometimes.

This thread was clearly started in a spirit of fun. Can we try to keep it that way?


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## Queshire (Mar 16, 2021)

Sure. Seems I misunderstood what you meant.


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## S.T. Ockenner (Mar 16, 2021)

You could write a story that isn't about a chosen one. The character could go to a Dwarven School Of Wizardry, where everyone is short, bearded, and nonhuman.


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## FifthView (Mar 16, 2021)

I nominate you to write this.



Malik said:


> Write it from a different POV.
> 
> Somebody for the love of God write one of these "wizard academy" stories from a teacher's POV. Imagine the teachers' lounge at a wizard academy. Imagine the parent-teacher conferences. Imagine grading homework.
> 
> Someone please write about a teacher of sorcery who has to keep getting her idiot students out of trouble. Show me all the conversations involving the word "frankly" when the headmaster discovers one of this teacher's students is The Chosen One and she's like, "hey, that's great, but I have twenty-nine other kids to worry about, so . . ." and all of them make our concepts of "gifted" and "special needs" look like child's play. Someone please write _that. _I'd buy it.


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## Malik (Mar 16, 2021)

FifthView said:


> I nominate you to write this.



No chance. I don't know anything about schools, and I have no kids. (To be fair, I'm a Platoon Sergeant; I have 35 children, though some of them outrank me).


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## Mad Swede (Mar 16, 2021)

The Dark One said:


> Okay, so when you guys have finished judging me, you might note that my original suggestion (in a bit of fun) was about creating a character beyond the usual mainstream tropes. After being called out on dyslexia (which is fine Mad Swede) I then suggested that you give the character any sort of challenging situation that causes accidental carnage. I so specifically avoided the word disability after MS's post.
> 
> I very rarely say anything about myself on these forums but FYI, I'm a lawyer who has worked in disability for years, and understand very keenly (and have advocated on) these issues. For what it's worth the zeal of some people wanting only the best outcomes for those who need consideration can come across as unattractive passive aggression sometimes.
> 
> This thread was clearly started in a spirit of fun. Can we try to keep it that way?


Right, I'm going to call you out again.

If you're a lawyer who has advocated for and worked on disability issues then you ought to know much better than to joke about other peoples disabilities. It isn't OK, especially not in a public forum this. After all, you wouldn't have joked or suggested something similar on the basis of a persons skin colour or gender. Would you? So why did you think it was OK to joke about someone's disability?


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## Rosemary Tea (Mar 16, 2021)

Queshire said:


> Having a disability be just a challenge to toss a characters way like it's a hurdle in a race or a dragon to slay.
> 
> Technically not using the word disability doesn't buy you much when you suggest not!dyslexia.


If you're using a real disability, like dyslexia... or dyspraxia, autism, ADD/HD, blindness, deafness... _don't_ make it the challenge the character faces. Make it a part of who they are. Perhaps it gets them discriminated against, but that's not a challenge. That's living with discrimination. The challenge is when they go out and slay the dragon, _while_ having that disability and dealing with the discrimination.

And don't write that disability unless you have personal experience with it. Not just professional experience, PERSONAL experience. As in, you have it yourself or a very close person in your life does. If you're coming at it from any other perspective, you're going to other that character, and by extension, people who share their disability.

Speaking as a person with hidden disabilities. Nothing about us without us.


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## Kittie Brandybuck (Mar 16, 2021)

I would just like to say can you all please stop fighting? This thread was just meant to be some tips for a story i'm writing. Can you please stop?


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## The Dark One (Mar 16, 2021)

Mad Swede said:


> Right, I'm going to call you out again.
> 
> If you're a lawyer who has advocated for and worked on disability issues then you ought to know much better than to joke about other peoples disabilities. It isn't OK, especially not in a public forum this. After all, you wouldn't have joked or suggested something similar on the basis of a persons skin colour or gender. Would you? So why did you think it was OK to joke about someone's disability?



Please don't tell me what I ought to know.

As far as I'm concerned, anything can be funny. _Anything_, as long as it's done with sensibility and style, and with appropriate insight. Personally, I wouldn't write a story about a dyslexic person but I do like to see characters with disability or other challenges represented in fiction. I don't think it happens enough.


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## Devor (Mar 16, 2021)

Please stop before I have to close the thread.  I recognize that topics can be very personal, but there's a point where a debate serves its usefulness, and a point where it degenerates into something that needlessly harms relationships in the community.  It's better to let things go instead of crossing that point.




The Dark One said:


> Don't call it dyslexia then - call it anything you like, but give her a challenge.



There's a series called Upsidedown Magic, where the main characters and several of the others struggle in a special division of the school because their magic is "Upsidedown" and doesn't work the same as everyone else's.  I suppose it's similar to the arcs you often see in these inspiring disability stories, but it doesn't correlate to any specific real world condition.

As for the Ted talk, I think it's easy to forget that the literature kind of takes a necessary path of evolution.  Those stories were in many ways essential for bringing attention and respect to the needs of the disabled community, and whatever their faults, I do think they warrant a modicum of respect for the intentions behind them and some of the positive effects they've brought.

~~edit to add,

Upsidedown Magic brings me back to the OP.  There are plenty of ways to tell a story about a kid in a magic school that doesn't look like Harry Potter.... to the point, unfortunately, that there's a whole subgenre of magic school storytelling you also might run afoul of.


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## Kittie Brandybuck (Mar 17, 2021)

This whole fight is getting out of hand. Please stop.


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## S.T. Ockenner (Mar 17, 2021)

Kittie Brandybuck said:


> This whole fight is getting out of hand. Please stop.





Devor said:


> Please stop before I have to close the thread.  I recognize that topics can be very personal, but there's a point where a debate serves its usefulness, and a point where it degenerates into something that needlessly harms relationships in the community.  It's better to let things go instead of crossing that point.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I agree with these two. We're getting off topic.


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## Queshire (Mar 17, 2021)

Oi, word of staff is enough. The rest of you don't need to jump on the bandwagon.


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## Rosemary Tea (Mar 17, 2021)

Then let's talk about the topic.

School for witches and wizards that can't be too similar to Harry Potter.

Change the era or the country or the universe it's set in. Change the way magic works. Change the way students are selected. Don't include a dark lord who reliably brings the story to a climax at the end of every school year. Maybe there isn't a Big Bad in this one. Maybe it's just a teen drama that happens to be set in a magical world. 

Maybe the existence of this school and its graduates isn't any secret at all from the muggles (who wouldn't be called muggles, of course). Maybe they're integrated into normal society, but with special roles befitting their knowledge of magic. 

Maybe school happens year round, instead of sending the students home for the usual school holidays, like in Potterverse. That wouldn't necessarily mean it happens the same way year round. Maybe for the summer session, they go camping in the enchanted forest and have to live off the land, using their magical wits. Heck, maybe they do something like that the entire school year. Or, if it gets too cold in the winter, that's when they go inside and study magical theory and indoor spells.

Another question you might play with is, how does magical ability develop? In Potterverse, all the Hogwarts students have innate magic power, they just need to learn how to use it. But what if magical ability could be developed in anyone, it just took certain exercises or procedures to bring it out? Then, if your young witches and wizards are at a school, they're going to be spending more time on the development of their abilities, at least at first, than on what to do with them.


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## Devor (Mar 17, 2021)

To take a different tact, Harry Potter does a some uncommon things phenomenally well - the sorting hat, using humor to cover its relationship with muggles, the twins with their own magic joke shop, and more.  These are the kind of things I would want to avoid.  They're just too hard to top, and they're going scream "Harry Potter."  You can find your own ways to stand out.

There's also the villains: Voldemort and Umbridge.  Every story needs its own villains, so get your own.  And there's Snape, who is just... such a complex character.  Anything that screams Snape will scream Potter.  In your work those kinds of key characters should have their own fresh stories - including their connection to the MCs - and your own storytelling quirks.

There are lots of Dumbledores, lots of Hermiones, lots of Harrys, Lunas and Dracos out there.  Many schools have houses, often specializing in different magic types.  There's sports and tournaments.  All this stuff is magic school bread and butter.  Potions, dragons, and magic items - that's the fantasy flourish.  All that stuff is fair game. This is the stuff people are looking for when they pick up magic school literature.

And even in magic schools "Chosen Ones" are still so common people will be on their third eyeroll before they even remember Harry Potter did it too.


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## Queshire (Mar 17, 2021)

Of course, if you're going for comedy then you can make fun of Harry Potter, though it might be a bit of a low hanging fruit. 



Spoiler


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## Devor (Mar 17, 2021)

That's true, Queshire.  There's parody, and there's also homage, both of which will play fine with people.


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## Prince of Spires (Mar 18, 2021)

Malik said:


> No chance. I don't know anything about schools, and I have no kids. (To be fair, I'm a Platoon Sergeant; I have 35 children, though some of them outrank me).


Why not set it in a magical military academy. Now that would definitely not feel like Harry Potter... 

To the OP, you could have a school where all the kids have a different magical ability, maybe set somewhere in the USA like New York or some such. They are raised at the school because their parents are afraid of them and don't know how to handle their powers. And they're trained to fight of evil threatening the world by a mind reader in a wheelchair. 

Wait, that's X-men.  

That does illustrate the point a lot of people are making. No one would confuse X-men with Harry Potter. But both are about a boarding school hidden from the world where the kids can do magic (superhero magic is still magic, just not the wand-waving type). They have the kids fighting evil. If you describe it abstractly enough then you would almost think they're the same thing. But once you get into them they are clearly not. The powers and how they work are different. The story beats are different. The setting is different. The atmosphere of the story is different.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Mar 20, 2021)

Kittie Brandybuck said:


> I'm kinda busy working on a different story right now, but i've been working on a story about a young witch who goes to a magic school called Ellsford academy for young witches and wizards. My only problem right now is that i'm a bit worried that i'll be accused of copying, so i'd like some advice on how to make my story different from Harry Potter. Any suggestions?



my biggest suggestion is don’t worry about it—“magic school” is more of a trope than a connection to a specific work at this point. 

But I think a lot of the major fantasy books that are obviously derivative of Harry Potter are lots more derivative than the setting. I would say try to mix up the characters especially—so many of these books have the protagonist immediately find two best friends and then meet a rich, stuck up “noble” wizard who becomes the protagonist’s main rival. It kind of gets writers stuck writing the same dynamics over and over again


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## FifthView (Mar 23, 2021)

Coincidentally, I stumbled upon a book that followed a "Harry Potter" template seemingly on purpose, read it this week, and enjoyed it.

_Carry On_ by Rainbow Rowell is what I'd call a light read. It's a light romance. The author chose to use a bit of satire. The main character, Simon Snow, acknowledges himself to be the "Chosen One" although he thinks he's a bad choice; but everyone else knows him to be the Chosen One, so he has to go along with it. His best friend is a girl named Penelope, and this seems to me to be clever because, for whatever reason, it reminds me of "Hermione." (It's something more than the 4 syllables.) She's super smart, very into books. The general tone of things at school is the same you'd find in the Harry Potter books. There's the trusted elder mentor-friend who is a goatherd living on the property; although a woman, she might as well be Hagrid. There are all kinds of fanciful, magical creatures and beings populating the magical world, some with silly names.  People who aren't magical, who can't use magic, are simply called "Normals."

While reading it, I often felt like I was reading a Harry Potter novel. _Tonally_, it rang those bells.

But, it was different also.

For one thing, it begins at the start of Simon's last year at the magic school, when he's already 18 years old. The first few short chapters are basically exposition during his trip back to school. The book is written in first-person present tense, but these opening chapters include flashbacks written in past tense to let us know about Simon's history and some of the main players in the story/school. Imagine Harry Potter was only ever one book, and in the first few chapters you learned he had killed a Basilisk underneath the school one year, another year he had confronted a three-headed dog, and once he had participated in a tri-school championship competition and fought a dragon.  That sort of thing. For me, this was both weird and nice, because most books involving young wizards begin when they are noobs largely unaware of dangers.

I mentioned this was written in first-person present tense. That's a difference, right there. Unfortunately for me, the author chose to skip around to the heads of about 6 or 7 people during the story. Each skip was prefaced with a chapter label of the character's name, so you could know whose head you would be in; but every one of these except Simon's and one other's was mostly useless.  The info given or revealed could have been delivered far more effectively without the break in narrative. Plus, the method seemed hackneyed, a gimmick that showed the author's hand.  For instance, one character might end a section wondering what so-and-so might think about something, and the very next short chapter would be so-and-so who starts out the chapter by thinking about that thing. I enjoyed other aspects of the novel well enough to ... er ... carry on through these lurches anyway. Some weren't so bad, even if ultimately they were unneeded.  There were also grains, hints, that at least one of these other characters might make for an interesting protagonist in some later story.

The magic system in this book may be the most interesting part of it.  Essentially, cliches and  well-worn phrases are the magical phrases they use to cast spells.  This can be lines from famous poems, jingles, lyrics from famous songs, just general cliches and sayings or proverbs, childrens rhymes--so having a great vocabulary and awareness of these things is necessary. This is similar to the Harry Potter style, but better. In fact, unknown and rare Latin words would be almost powerless in this system--hardly anyone in the world uses them--whereas lines from a Queen song might have lots of power.  (The Bible and Shakespeare, though old, continue to hold a lot of power.)

Some things in the social structure of the magical world are similar to the Harry Potter world, but some things are different, different enough for this magical society to seem like a different society.

Some of the biggest differences between this novel and Harry Potter:

It's ultimately a romance between two male characters.
The antagonists, and their raison d'etre, are quite different than any you'll find in Harry Potter.
Very, very little of the school environment is used. We never see them in any classes, for instance. We don't see them competing in sports. Actually, mostly we only get the cafeteria and Simon's dormitory room, with short detours to the headmaster's office, a barn, a tower, a crypt.
There are no school houses, or division, i.e., no Slytherin and Gryffindor, and so no competition between houses.
The narrative in general is very internal, subjective, with a lot of of internal thoughts, observations, etc.  I suppose this was exacerbated by the first person present approach. But this also means that a lot of the action in the novel is internal and/or in dialogue. Action happens in the novel, but the story as a whole feels less kinetic than the Harry Potter novels.
Did this novel feel like a _theft_ of the Harry Potter series? No, not really. Not to me. In part, the obvious homage made me feel comfy. The tone of HP has been missed, so this feels like a close cousin in a peculiar, specialized genre. There was enough that was different, particularly in the character interactions, the magic system, the antagonists, and the general non-romance portions of the plot, to make this feel like its own thing. (I'll add here at the end that the romance was not handled as well as it could have been; but nonetheless for a quick, light read, it sort of hit the spot for me.)


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## S.T. Ockenner (Mar 23, 2021)

FifthView said:


> It's ultimately a romance between two male characters.





Spoiler: Spoiler for Carry On



one of which is a vampire


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## Steerpike (Mar 23, 2021)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> my biggest suggestion is don’t worry about it—“magic school” is more of a trope than a connection to a specific work at this point.



The idea also predates Potter by quite a bit--Rowling drew on prior works involving wizard or magic school. The comparison to Potter _now_ is inevitable, but I wouldn't worry about it. There is an audience for wizarding-school type books. If you can give them what they want and are writing something you enjoy at the same time, that's great.


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## S.T. Ockenner (Mar 23, 2021)

Steerpike said:


> The idea also predates Potter by quite a bit--Rowling drew on prior works involving wizard or magic school. The comparison to Potter _now_ is inevitable, but I wouldn't worry about it. There is an audience for wizarding-school type books. If you can give them what they want and are writing something you enjoy at the same time, that's great.


Such as Discworld's Unseen University and Elder Scrolls's Arcane University. Difference was, magic schools were for adults back then- there were no magical high school ers  or middle school ers.


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## Kittie Brandybuck (Mar 23, 2021)

S.T. Ockenner said:


> Such as Discworld's Unseen University and Elder Scrolls's Arcane University. Difference was, magic schools were for adults back then- there were no magical high school ers  or middle school ers.


There were some high schools, such as Cackle's academy from The worst witch.


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## Steerpike (Mar 23, 2021)

S.T. Ockenner said:


> Such as Discworld's Unseen University and Elder Scrolls's Arcane University. Difference was, magic schools were for adults back then- there were no magical high school ers  or middle school ers.



Except that Dianna Wynne Jones was writing about children sent to magical boarding schools (witches and wizards) at least as far back as the early 80s. She even had some stuff that turned up later in Potter, like portraits on the wall with people moving around in them.


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## S.T. Ockenner (Mar 23, 2021)

Steerpike said:


> Except that Dianna Wynne Jones was writing about children sent to magical boarding schools (witches and wizards) at least as far back as the early 80s. She even had some stuff that turned up later in Potter, like portraits on the wall with people moving around in them.





Kittie Brandybuck said:


> There were some high schools, such as Cackle's academy from The worst witch.


Whoops. I had no idea. Thank you for telling me.


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## Steerpike (Mar 23, 2021)

S.T. Ockenner said:


> Whoops. I had no idea. Thank you for telling me.



No problem. At one point, I think there were people arguing that Rowling stole from Dianna Wynne Jones. I think that’s probably overstating the case quite a bit but it did make some news: 

In appreciation of Diana Wynne Jones

Jones commented on the “striking similarities” between her works and Potter.


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## Kittie Brandybuck (Mar 24, 2021)

Steerpike said:


> No problem. At one point, I think there were people arguing that Rowling stole from Dianna Wynne Jones. I think that’s probably overstating the case quite a bit but it did make some news:
> 
> In appreciation of Diana Wynne Jones
> 
> Jones commented on the “striking similarities” between her works and Potter.


I noticed some similarities between Harry Potter and The worst witch, such as an old, friendly headteacher, a rich, blonde rival, and a potions teacher who hates the main character and dresses all in black...


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## The Dark One (Mar 25, 2021)

I've said numerous times on various boards that I regarded Harry Potter as an obvious blend of Enid Blyton's (numerous) boarding school stories with A Wizard of Earthsea.

Few people agree with me.


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## Mad Swede (Mar 25, 2021)

The Dark One said:


> I've said numerous times on various boards that I regarded Harry Potter as an obvious blend of Enid Blyton's (numerous) boarding school stories with A Wizard of Earthsea.
> 
> Few people agree with me.


That might be because so many literary critics have such negative views of Enid Blyton, and many would consider it heresy to lump JK Rowling in with Enid Blyton. 

Boarding school was a fact of life for many children in the UK between the wars and after, and thats reflected in quite a lot of childrens and YA books. Things like the Green Knowe books, The Dark Is Rising books, the Narnia books, Swallows and Amazons and the Chalet School books. You might even add books like RF Delderfields To Serve Them All My Days if you want to include serious novels. So there's no lack of tradition or influences when it comes to a boarding school as a setting for British literature.


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## Miles Lacey (Mar 25, 2021)

The Dark One said:


> I've said numerous times on various boards that I regarded Harry Potter as an obvious blend of Enid Blyton's (numerous) boarding school stories with A Wizard of Earthsea.
> 
> Few people agree with me.



I don't know about the Earthsea thing (only because I never read that series) but I read a lot of Enid Blyton as a kid.  I would agree with you about Harry Potter being nothing more than a British boarding school story with fantasy elements tossed in.


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## S.T. Ockenner (Mar 26, 2021)

Miles Lacey said:


> I don't know about the Earthsea thing (only because I never read that series) but I read a lot of Enid Blyton as a kid.  I would agree with you about Harry Potter being nothing more than a British boarding school story with fantasy elements tossed in.


I'd say its the other way around. Fantasy with a boarding school as a background. After all, the magical elements are way more important to the plot then the boarding school is.


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## Malise (Mar 29, 2021)

I think that a fresh take on a "magical school" setting would be one where the school was an inner-city public school, sorta like St. Clortho's in that one Jordan and Peele skit.

For one, it's always bothered me how magic schools always have to be boarding schools, because it neglects the fact that maybe _a lot of _students can't afford to leave home to learn magic, because of their financial, familiar ect. situations. I know if I were a wizard and got accepted to Hogwarts, my mom would never let me attend because she's one of those parents who believe that success in practical academics is better than the extracurricular hogwash that both magical and "normie" schools are promoting as their main focus nowadays. Also, I don't believe that it's possible for any kind of government (even those who can conjure gold from lead) to provide full need-based boarding school scholarships for every student that needs them, because corruption and government stinginess is a problem everywhere. 

Magical public schools allow for more in-depth worldbuilding due to the setting is not a self-contained bubble setting like a boarding school. Parent-Magical teacher relationships can be more fleshed out, as the parents can now easily contact the faculty and chew them out for things (like physical abuse/breaches of safety) that would've been unreported in boarding schools. Students now have a life outside of school, which allows them to have part-time jobs and hang out in places like paintball arenas opening more ways for your characters to use their magic in non-life and limb situations. Competitiveness in magical studies can also be elaborated on, as the existence of magical public schools implies that no one institution holds the monopoly of education in a region, meaning you can show _what a bad magic school looks like. _

Lastly, magical public school allows more chances for comedy than a boarding school as a concept, because humor is often based on relatability and there are much more of us out there who has experienced public-school nonsense rather than boarding school nonsense.


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## S.T. Ockenner (Mar 29, 2021)

Malise said:


> Jordan and Peele


You just said "Jordan Peele and Jordan Peele."
 It's Keegan Michael-Key and Jordan Peele.


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## Malise (Mar 29, 2021)

Whoops, sorry about that. I'm really bad with names and it's been a long, long time since I've watched their stuff. Thanks for correcting me.


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## Miles Lacey (Mar 29, 2021)

Hmmm... avoiding the similarities could be as easy as moving the boarding school to the Caribbean.  In the boarding school there could be a mixture of African, European and Mulatto (mixed race) students which reflects the population of the Caribbean country it's located in.  The boarding school could be caught up in a conflict between traditional African and European magic on the one side and a more modern magic created from a fusion of traditional African and European magic on the other.  

The same basic flavour of Harry Potter can still be kept but with so many different potential sources of conflict between teachers, students and parents - as well as the wider community - there could potentially be several books that could come out of that setting.


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