Writing Lessons we can learn from Harry Potter

Part one: Character introduction

Source

J K Rowling introduces characters with action.

She barely focuses on looks, apart from some distinguishing feature the reader is likely to remember (e.g. Hagrid’s size, Neville’s round face, Ron’s freckles). She keeps reinforcing these distinguishing features over and over again throughout the book. Also, when she introduces new characters, she tries to put in as much information about them as possible.

Case in point: Hermione’s introduction

The girl was already wearing her new Hogwarts robes. “Has anyone seen a toad? Neville’s lost one,” she said. She had a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth.

Also, JKR mentions characters in passing. An example of this is — when Harry walks into Platform 9 ¾, he sees several scenes in which we get introduced to several minor characters. In a single sentence, we can get a lot of information about the character without the passage sounding like an info dump.

Example:

He passed a round-faced boy who was saying, “Gran, I’ve lost my toad again.”

“Oh, Neville,” he heard the old woman sigh.