When it comes to the climax, it has to be hero versus villain.

Ultimately and I think what's really cool about that climax Voldemort offers Harry the thing he's always wanted. So he says there's a chance. I can give you your parents back and maybe a future of being this boy who lived. We can infer that in exchange for joining him on the dark side whether that's really what he intends or not, and if Harry hadn't overcome that inner obstacle of accepting his past and accepting his legacy and stepping into that, he wouldn't have been able to succeed in this moment.

Welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy podcast. My name is Savannah Gilbo and I'm here to help you write a story that works. I want to prove to you that writing a novel doesn't have to be overwhelming. So each week I'll bring you a brand new episode with simple, actionable and step-by-step strategies that you can implement in your writing right away. So whether you're brand new to writing or more of a seasoned author looking to improve your craft, this podcast is for you. So pick up a pen and let's get started.

In today's episode, I'm going to take you on a deep dive into the structure of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and if you haven't had a chance to listen to the bonus episode that released last week about the global structure of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. You might want to check out that episode before listening to this one. Now, in the beginning of this episode, my special guest, abigail K Perry, is going to walk us through a high-level overview of what we're aiming for in the beginning, middle and end sections of a story, and then I'm going to walk you through what each of these sections looks like in the first Harry Potter book and I'm going to share what we came up with as the five commandments for each one of those sections. So what is the inciting incident, turning point, crisis, climax and resolution of each section, incident, turning point, crisis, climax and resolution of each section, and in doing so, you'll see how both the plot and character arc unfolds from start to finish. You'll also see how Rowling raised the stakes in each section of her story and how everything built up to the climactic moment where Harry faces Voldemort in the end.

We cover a lot in this episode and it's all based on the section I wrote about plot structure in the Story Grid Masterwork Analysis Guide to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, which, if you haven't heard the news, that is my new book and it's officially available for pre-order right now. You can learn more about my brand new book at savannahgilbocom forward slash masterwork. But for now, let's go ahead and dive right into the conversation. But for now, let's go ahead and dive right into the conversation.

The beginning hook would be, like, traditionally, your act once. What is the point of a beginning hook? In the beginning hook we have the establishing of status quo. So you have your protagonists. You're going to understand what their goal is, what their longing for life is really, and we're going to see them in their everyday life. And in this beginning book we're also going to get the catalyst or the inciting incident of the whole story. So that status quo is going to be challenged by this unexpected disturbance right. So at that point you might hear like the call to adventure would be another term for it in the hero's journey. At this point in the beginning hook, the protagonist is going to need to decide if they're going to rise to the occasion and take on their adventure or if they're going to stay home, which would mean that there is no story. So they're always going to rise to the adventure, even if they're forced on that adventure. So that's going to be the beginning. Ultimately, when we decide to go forward into the story, we're going to enter the middle belt.

And so we want to take you through the beginning hook of Harry Potter. So in the beginning hook we have the same five commandments, and before we can contextualize those five commandments, we want to think about what is Harry's objective when we meet him on page one and in this story we meet him when he's just a baby, you know through the lens of Dumbledore and then Uncle Vernon. So we're going to skip a little bit to the second chapter of when Harry's 10, almost 11. So his objective once we get there in this quadrant it's pretty simple he just wants to stay off the Dursley's radar. He wants to avoid making his life any worse than it already is and just be a kid, right. So once we know that's his objective, we can say what's the conflict that gets in the way of that objective and how does this quadrant move the story forward? So we're going to do that through the five commandments. So the inciting incident of the beginning hook is that the male arrives with a letter addressed to harry potter in the cupboard under the stairs, but the dursleys will not let him have that letter. So this is what kicks off the action in the beginning hook. Then we have a bunch of progressive complications and we get to this turning point. Progressive complication when finally Hagrid delivers Harry's letter in person and then says hey, you're a wizard and you've been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And also in the same conversation he tells Harry your parents were murdered by the most powerful dark wizard of all time, lord voldemort. So this is a big deal. We start answering this question raised in the inciting incident and it forces a crisis for harry. Should harry, at 11 years old, after he's just learned everything that hagrid told him, should he risk the unknown by going with hagrid to hogwarts or should he stay with the Dursleys to avoid the unknown? So it's kind of like which bit of discomfort do you want to sit into? And also either of these comes with risks that go back to that global value spectrum. So the climax Harry decides to go and they go to Diagon Alley where they retrieve that mysterious package from Gringotts for Dumbledore which we know Harry is especially curious about. And then after that, on September 1st this is the resolution Harry travels to King's Cross Station, boards the Hogwarts Express via Platform 9, 3 quarters and he has officially entered the Wizarding World. So, as you can hopefully see through just these five commandments.

When the letter arrives for Harry, this kicks off a chain of events that ultimately leads to the decision to risk the unknown by going to Hogwarts. So at the beginning of this quadrant, harry doesn't really know what happened to his parents. He doesn't know he's famous in the wizarding world, but by the end he has some of this information. So he knows some of the big things, but he doesn't know everything. Just yet. He's starting to figure out who he is, what his place in the world looks like and things like that, even though knowing this now starts to give rise to that inner obstacle.

Going to Hogwarts sounds exciting. It's also nerve wracking. It's unknown. There's this whole history. He didn't know about himself, which is crazy for anyone, but as an 11-year-old, extra crazy. And then we get to this climax and resolution where he heads off. So, although going to Hogwarts is going to eventually result, make the good friends he makes, find a place to belong, gain that confidence and skill that he needs to defeat Voldemort. So if we just look at this, we see an arc of change, we see it play on global stakes and we more or less feel positive, even though Harry's maybe a little insecure at the end here. Thoughts on that, abigail.

Just that. Harry Potter and Sorcerer's Stone, if you analyze it, is very challenging because, again, we're tracking this action story, so that stakes. But so much of Harry Potter and Sorcerer's Stone, especially in the beginning, is not dealing with interface life in this Right. So, also, thinking in the back of your minds here, what we like to say is can you argue why each of these scenes moves us on that value of life and death? Exactly what you were saying there, savannah, is that to not go to Hogwarts is to jeopardize life. Right, so we're able to rationalize and defend these commandments and these choices for these scenes. Because, even though so much, it's just honestly fun, right, everyone who loves Harry Potter dream of getting your own Converse letter, and I think that is where we're always moving around in those stakes. So, as long as when you're writing your stories, you can say I can defend why this is impacting the global value, because then I think that you're in the right arena.

Yeah, and question for you, because we toyed with this and I think I'm sure some listeners are wondering but in a scene like Hagrid coming to tell the truth about Harry, and you're a wizard and you're going to this great school and blah, blah, blah, it sounds exciting, but also Hagrid's a giant who knocks down a door. So it's kind of fun to think about how, in a way, you see different versions of stakes, like life and death stakes, because that could, I mean my mom thinks Harry Potter's scary. She will not watch the movie, she thinks it's terrifying. I don't know why, but I could see a scene like that making someone feel that way, and it plays on life and death stakes in multiple ways. It plays on danger in multiple ways, but most of this quadrant, like Abigail said, it's, it's more behind the scenes from the author's perspective. We know we're pulling him into danger and we know we're also pulling him to a place that's going to give him the tools to survive that danger.

Great point Savannah, because I think that's a hat tip to the other interview that we talked about from perspective, and we emphasize perspective, and we're in limited perspective with Harry Potter. So we only know for the time that you're at Savannah and I'm at my level and you're reading it a billion times.

We know that Hagrid is not scary. But that first read and that's why there's something extra beautiful about the first read of any book is because you only know how much you're provided information by the author. And if we're limited in Harry's perspective yeah, the door is broken down in a stormy night the whole entire setting is ominous. Right, we know that someone's been trying to reach Harry, so maybe that would make it feel like this is going to be a little bit friendlier when the Dursleys are not. The Dursleys definitely think that they're alive in jeopardy. Yeah, right, and I think that's where you can see the stage. We know almost immediately, from the moment that Hag hacker opens his mouth, he's on Harry's side, so think right In which he ends up being. But yeah, it's all based on perspective, so fight or flight response would happen regardless when you have your door barged out.

Yeah, yeah. So it's just, it's fun to think about and this is not something that, as a writer, you're going to nail on your first, second, maybe even third drops. But there, but there are different ways you can play with readers, expectations and how we feel the stakes. So we'll talk about that more because we're going to get into different things that will trigger that. But why don't you take us through, kind of what, what we're supposed to be doing here in the middle build up? Because, remember, we now break this up in the middle build up and middle breakdown.

So this is where the protagonist is going to react to the new situation. So we have old world, new world, right? Sometimes we literally are entering a new world. Sometimes we're going into a new world based on the information that we didn't know existed before, and now we're going into that new world. So that's more Harry Potter's place, right, like we actually have the wizarding world. What's so magical about Harry is that the wizarding world is part of the real world. It's just guys, right. So that's something really cool about harry potter can I pause you there?

because you said something that a lot of writers get confused about and they're like my character isn't actually going to a school like hogwarts and you said it's it could be a new world based on new information that changes how you view the world. Can you just talk about that for another second?

well, he doesn't and he doesn't go to Hogwarts right away.

Yeah, right so, from the beginning, we're going to Diagon Alley and that's showing us new things about the wizarding world and we're going to get to have that exposure. We have to get on the train before we go and I think that ultimately, when you look at other examples probably less action stories, less fantasy, sci-fi those are more likely that you're actually going to enter some new world because of the magical components to them. Dystopian, like with Hunger Games is another one that we talked about.

Like you're going to go to the Capitol, you're going to go into the Hunger Games, but those are also existing in the same world of Panache, right? So when you look at something that's more literary, or when you're looking at book club fiction and we're dealing with reality in a more traditional sense, I would say, then you might be just going on a trip, right? So you might be going that way if you are in a school system. The Hate U Give is the one that's popping up in my mind. So I think for her, she actually is just being forced to boot star as the main character. She's being forced to see her new world in a new way, because up to the point where her best friend is murdered, she has always been able to kind of build a wall. This is my home in the ghetto and this is my home when I go to the private school with dominantly white students, and she's kind of been able to separate those worlds, and her insidious is going to force her to have to actually merge that.

Yeah, so it's a new world.

Yeah Well, it's a matter of like how the character is being forced to face that new disturbance and achieve their goal in a way that how they're, basically their status quo, is disrupted. That's the whole thing about. Stasis equals death, because that means the death story. If you're not changing, we're not moving, we're not developing plot, we're not developing characters, and that is the big thing about when you enter the middle build. Everything is about moving us forward, right.

Yeah, and one thing I want to talk about here, because it's just some things I see writers do or get confused about, is this piece we have here in the bullet. So although people in this in beginning of the middle build up, they're in a new situation, they're usually going to try to deal with that new situation using everything they've leaned on before so skills, tactics, friends that have worked out for them before. But because they're in a new situation, it's probably not going to work out, which is how we get a lot of that conflict. And they are still taking action. So I see a lot of writers create passive protagonists because they're in a new world and, like Harry, what's he going to do? He doesn't know magic, right, he doesn't, but he's still very proactive.

We're going to analyze Diagon Alley closely as a scene later and I think that one thing that you want to look at specifically and maybe this is middle grade. You do more middle grade than I do, Savannah, so you could speak to this. But because it is this these earlier books we're on a shallow learning curve, meaning that we're learning the Wizarding World as we learn it with Harry. But there are many scenes where I found Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in particular, out of all the books in the series challenging to find crisis decisions in certain scenes, because Harry is learning the world and sometimes a lot of his decision-making might feel extra passive because it's him like, basically just like wrapping his head around what is happening this world, how he fits in it, what matters, what doesn't matter in this world, and he doesn't understand the information. So dive on out. It's actually a really good scene to analyze, to explain that, so we'll put a bookmark in that We'll get there.

But let's walk through how this shows up in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. So again we want to frame the quadrant by thinking of what's his objective now that he's at Hogwarts or on his way to Hogwarts? So last time we saw him in the beginning hook, he got on the train, right. So his objective at this point is to figure out where he belongs at Hogwarts, what's going on in the wizarding world and like what all this stuff means, right? So this can help us frame the conflict for the five commandments. So here are the inciting incident he's at the sorting ceremony and this is after he's sorted. So his scar lights up in pain when he makes eye contact with that black haired hook nose teacher who we now know is Professor Snape. So that's the inciting incident. That kind of kicks off things and you'll see what I mean in a second. Then we have a lot of complications that happen between that and the turning point, which is when Harry and Ron see Snape heading for the third floor corridor and they have to decide are they going to spy on him, Are they going to go rescue Hermione from that troll? So they're on their way to rescue Hermione, but then they see him and they end up not pursuing him. We can go into more of this in a second, but this is it's a big moment. He thinks he has a little bit of evidence about something Snape's up to and also he becomes friends with Ron and Hermione or mostly Hermione at this point, because him and Ron are already buddies. So the crisis occurs in the scene where Harry eavesdrops on Snape and Harry leaves this eavesdropping moment, assuming that Snape let that troll into the castle and possibly maybe he's after whatever that three-headed dog is guarding on the third floor. So his crisis is should I tell anyone, even though I don't have any proof about this, or should I keep it to myself? And either way there's stakes with this right. If you tell somebody, he could be discredited, he can get in trouble, he could be embarrassed, he could get on Snape's radar even more. If he doesn't, something bad could happen. So it's tough.

The climax is he does nothing. So in this situation he knows I don't have enough proof and luckily and unluckily for him, the Quidditch match distracts him from ruminating on this choice. So this is the climactic moment he does nothing. And then the Quidditch match distracts him and someone jinxes his broom during that match, which almost kills him. So he exits this quadrant, thinking Snape is targeting me and he must be after whatever's on the third floor. So they talk to Hagrid and they get their first clue about what's on the third floor because Hagrid says whatever's up there only has to do with Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel himself or whatever he says. So we've taken him from a hooked nose teacher up here. I made eye contact with him and somehow my scar lit up in pain and I don't know what this means. We're deepening this conflict as we go down here and by the end they are convinced that Snape is after whatever's on the third floor and possibly even just tried to kill Harry, which is crazy.

So a lot of good things happen. He gets sorted into Gryffindor, he makes two really good friends, which is very important to his success and his survival in the global climax. He starts to learn magic, he secures a really cool spot in the Quidditch team and they even win that first big match of the season. But ultimately this quadrant shows a negative value, shift on the life and death spectrum because he's singled out by one of his teachers and the other students because of his reputation as the boy who lived and he's yet to reconcile this with himself. And then he encounters Professor Snape, and it's what makes his goal start to shift and his focus start to shift to this guy's suspicious.

And what is he doing? So he starts to understand why does this guy hate me? Why does my scar light up? Why is he creeping around the castle? And it's this quest for understanding that leads Harry into situations that make him more and more curious about what that package is and why Snape wants it. So, by the end of the quadrant, he's become the target of the antagonist. So, even though he suspects it's Snape, it's actually Voldemort slash Quirrell who jinxed him, but he suspects it's Snape. So he's the target of the antagonist and he's starting to understand what they want. So the person wants something on the third floor. Again, he's got the wrong person, but he's starting to get down the right path and the stakes have been raised and he can't go back to how he was before the sorting ceremony.

A lot to unpack there, yeah, and to ask you a question that I think some people would be asking here you've mentioned how this is a negative, ultimately overall negative shift on the life to death value spectrum and I think that when you look at something like the climax scene in this, you'd say, okay, he was almost killed, but he wasn't killed and he does win the Quidditch match and things like that. Just to go over this, why you think it's a negative and why we've talked about how this is a negative shift, do you think that what Harry might be seeing as a positive shift can still be a negative shift on the global value spectrum? So does perspective come into play in, ultimately, what we're seeing on how he is moving further from life and death versus what the characters think is happening?

Yeah, and there's so many ways we could look at this. So, for example, I want a Quidditch match. Yay, I'm finally coming out into society as this person that deserves my title or whatever. So in that way, it's a positive and he would think it's a positive. But from a global perspective, has this quadrant moved him closer to life or closer to death? Has it moved him closer to being able to succeed against someone like Voldemort, or farther away from it? And again, there's two ways you could look at that too.

Right, Because he's gained the knowledge and the skills some of them he's still learning. He's gained friends, so that's a positive. He's doing well in Quidditch that's a positive. But he's so focused on Snape being the bad guy he's not actually seeing who the real bad guy is, which is Quirrell. So the more he leads with that, it's like ignorance masked his knowledge. Right, he thinks he knows what's going on, but he's pursuing the wrong path, which will get him into danger. So we have to zoom out and think from that global perspective and see the truth about where he's really going.

Yeah, and I love that you phrased it that way, because I know that when I've analyzed these Harry Potter books, I have super spiraled which one is it negative or positive? Because it's exactly what you said. You can argue it either way and, yeah, I think what my consensus is when I come to making a decision about this is it's my decision about this. So I think that when I'm looking at that, you can have what is a positive shift in a scene, but still have a negative shift on the global scale and, like most complicated answers in life, it can be both, and I think that's ultimately again what it comes down to.

When you're analyzing stories or when you're writing your own and you're plotting it out, Can you explain why this makes sense for moving your story forward? And ultimately, with this, something like the Quidditch match Harry doesn't die, he still wins the Quidditch match. That is a positive shift in that scene. But what you just said, I think, is the key here, is that he has the wrong key, and he is not only does he have the wrong assumption of who is behind in tracking down the Sorcerer's Stone, but he is so steadfast and locked in on that black and white view that he is not only completely blind to what actually is really going on, but cheering for the person who is actually behind what's really going on, so it's actually a really masterful art.

on Rawlings' part of misdirection, I'm making sure that we are thinking this so that this can actually be happening. That will inevitably peak in plot twists, which is really cool.

Yeah, and we pull out kind of all those details in the individual scene analyses in the book. So if you're interested in that, you will enjoy the book. But yeah, I think, like Abigail said, it is subjective to an extent and, like this was the probably the hardest part for us to analyze and we've had various versions of this section of the story. But when we zoomed out and we said, OK, what is the thread? The thread revolves around Voldemort. It revolves around life and death stuff for Harry and then how does him learning or learning things that he thinks are the truth versus learning the truth, Like how does that play into the life and death stakes and things like that?

And this is where we landed and we can get into this later, probably in the Diagon Alley scene. But there's different ways to analyze things and in most cases we get to the same conclusion and that conclusion is what helps us write better stories. So that's where Abigail and I just try to land is do we understand something in the same way, even if the words and the individual scene details are a little different? So just something to keep in mind. But okay, so why? Okay?

so we're going to see here is how they're reacting to the chaos. Right by this point, that means they've made the revelation about the chaos and then, even if they can't put that revelation into concrete terms, they are going to try to take this on. So this is where we really start to see and we talked about this earlier how the internal obstacle tightly leaves the closer that you reach the climax. Right, if it wasn't before and it should have been, then it definitely is twisting around and almost becoming inseparable. Brawling also actually is really masterful and you'll notice sometimes another part that was heard about analyzing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and all the Harry Potter books.

She's so amazing at subplot and we have the mystery subplot going on and it's almost like the mystery subplot and the action subplot become inseparable as well. So you're seeing the internal obstacles and you're also seeing how stakes are being raised as a whole. By the end of this section we're going to see the protagonist reach their all time low or that all is lost moment. So seemingly the darkest moment of the hour has happened. What the protagonist thinks is the worst thing that can happen has happened. Right, there tends to be like a metaphorical death or a literal death usually in these scenes, and ultimately they're forced to take action because there are no guarantees on their survival and an action story and they're going to be forced to step up to the plate in order to not only defend, usually their life, but a victim's life, if not multiple victims as well.

Yes. So let's do the same thing. So we want to think about what is the objective. After we've just left Harry in the middle build up, he's got his sights set on Snape right. They also have a clue about someone named Nicholas Flamel having something to do with that package. So at this stage in the middle breakdown, harry wants to figure out what Nicholas Femal has to do with that package that's on the third floor so that he can figure out what Snape's up to. So it's a way for him to understand, kind of his goal that he started the middle build up with. Like what is with this guy Snape, why does my scar hurt and what is he up to? So that helps us frame the conflict.

So the inciting incident here is Harry, ron and Hermione discover who Nicholas Fomel is. So he is the creator of the Sorcerer's Stone, and the Sorcerer's Stone gives us immortality. It gives its user immortality. So then there are a lot of progressive complications between this and the turning point. Progressive complication which happens when the kids help Hagrid relocate his baby dragon, but then they get detention and lose 50 points each for Gryffindor, which knocks them out of the running for the championship and makes Harry really unpopular with his fellow Gryffindors and because of this, it takes the wind out of his sails when it comes to finding out more about what's in the package and the Sorcerer's Stone and Nicholas Flamel and all that. It's turned. It's actually turned his attention and how he feels about things. So this leads to the crisis.

In the scene he overhears someone threaten Quirrell and Harry assumes okay, quirrell must have told Snape. It must be Snape threatening him. He must have told Snape how to get past that three-headed dog. He's defeated, right, he's defeated in the turning point. He just got detention and his question now is should I go to Dumbledore and risk getting into even more trouble now that I've heard this conversation, or should I stay out of things and risk letting Snape get the stone, take action or do nothing? And the climax is that he is determined to stay out of it because of everything that happened in the turning point. So he lacks proof. He doesn't feel like he wants to risk his place at Hogwarts and things like that. So that's his choice. Until he comes across Voldemort drinking unicorn blood in the Forbidden Forest, which is that climactic scene of the middle breakdown.

And then in the resolution, the kids. Because of all this, they assume Snape's helping Voldemort and it's only a matter of time before Voldemort comes to finish Harry off. This section's really fun because after Hagrid gives him that clue about Nicholas Flamel having something to do with that mysterious package, they have their first clue to work with. Harry and his friends are no longer just reacting to things, they have something tangible to pursue and everything feels like they're making progress. Until they get detention for helping Hagrid and he's essentially persona non grata and everyone's mad at him, right, so takes the wind out of the sails of his quest to find the truth until they actually serve that detention. And then they get their last big clue Voldemort is at Hogwarts and now Snape appears to have everything he needs to get that stone and there's no time to waste. So the deadline and that ticking clock really ramps up here and Harry has to do something if he wants to stop Voldemort from coming back and if he wants to survive.

So pretty fun section. The only thing that I would say is another debate that we had. I just keep bringing in these other things that we thought about. Why end with Snape helping Voldemort, supposedly in the Forbidden Forest as the resolution, versus Dumbledore being away from Hogwarts, when they believe Snape's going after the stone? Because I know that's one that I've heard people debate about too. So why did we pick that?

So to answer that question, I'm going to take us through the ending payoff, because the first scene in the ending payoff is that scene with Dumbledore.

So put a pause in that. And then the ending payoff here. So the purpose here is to bring everything together, force the antagonist to go up against the protagonist and vice versa in that global climax. So usually we see a protagonist who they have to join forces with other people and in most cases they have to be willing to sacrifice, whether that's their safety, their agency, their life or whatever, to increase the agency and the survival of others. And by the end of this section we really want that answer to the question raised in the beginning. So is Harry going to survive? Is he going to embrace his reputation of being the boy who lived and things like that? And we want that emotional payoff. So, to answer Abigail's question, we're going to dig into the ending payoff and again we want to frame his objective. So his objective at this point is to prevent Snape from getting the Sorcerer's Stone and in theory, if we ended the middle breakdown with them discovering Dumbledore is gone, it would still trigger that same goal, right? Dumbledore is gone. Now we want to stop Snape from getting the stone. So I have the inciting incident as that scene. They learn Dumbledore has left the castle and because of this Harry assumes that Snape is going after the stone tonight. So I think it works better as an inciting incident because of that time deadline, because in theory at the end of the last quadrant he just assumes Snape is going after the stone for Voldemort. Dumbledore being gone triggers that time sensitivity which makes their goal in the ending payoff more specific. So yeah, we want to stop Snape, but now we have to stop Snape tonight because Dumbledore's gone. And I think I know why you asked this, because either way you look at it, you're getting to the same result, right In the end. It's about stopping Snape from getting that stone and saving lives. So I have it as the inside incident.

Then we have a lot of complications. The turning point, progressive complication, happens when the kids have gone through the obstacles underneath the school and Hermione and Harry have lost Ron to that life-size game of wizard's chess and they're at the potions table and they realize there's only enough potion for one of them to go through to that final chamber. So Harry faces the crisis of the ending payoff and it's what should he do. Should he continue alone and face who he assumes is snape at the end and maybe voldemort who knows right, if snape's trying to get it from voldemort, maybe he's there or should he turn back and allow snape to succeed and voldemort to come back to full power, which puts him in danger anyway? Very clear on the stakes there. So the climax is he continues on alone and in the scene we see him come face to face with Quirrell and Voldemort slash Voldemort because we know Voldemort's on Quirrell's head and Quirrell slash Voldemort tries to use Harry to get the stone from the mirror but ultimately fails. So that's the big climactic hero at the mercy of the villain scene. Only one can survive and we know that it's Harry. In the resolution we get that confirmation and we know that he's prevented Voldemort from succeeding.

So in this section we know that Hagrid confirms he told someone how to get past Fluffy. So the kids go to Dumbledore to get help and they learn he's suspiciously called away, which triggers that goal. We have to do something tonight to stop Snape. And of course he has to take action. And Harry, ron and Hermione they demonstrate all these things that Gryffindor is known for right, the courage, the creativity, the out-of-box thinking. They sneak past Fluffy, go through Devil's Snare all that really fun stuff and get to that final end. Right Rolling has Harry continue on alone, which is really important. Do you want to add anything there, abigail Just?

that notice of the turning points, we get really specific, and that's something that Savannah and I love to do is, how specific can we get when we put down our choice of what we're analyzing as the scene that we're picking for the key scene? When they go through the trapdoor, there are a series of obstacles we are going to face, all with the same goal of get the stone before Snape does get through the obstacles. So we have picked, we've labeled the potion. One is ultimately the peak of that, because only one can drink it and there's only one potion to go back. And this is when Harani turns to Harry and says it has to in. Harry knows it has to be you.

So that is the crisis go on alone or not. And that's actually reflective of almost every Harry Potter book. When you reach that moment of entering the climax, he's going to have to eventually do this alone. He's had help and he always has help, and everything that he works with. All of that is really important. He doesn't survive without his team, right? But when it comes to the climax, it has to be hero versus villain ultimately.

And I think what's really cool about that climax which we get way nerdier about in the book. But Voldemort offers Harry the thing he's always wanted. So he says there's a chance. I can give you your parents back and maybe a future of being this boy who lived. We can infer that in exchange for joining him on the dark side whether that's really what he intends or not, we can probably assume he doesn't really mean that. And if Harry hadn't overcome that inner obstacle of accepting his past and accepting his legacy and stepping into that, he wouldn't have been able to succeed in this moment, because he either would have looked in the mirror and seen his family, as he has done before, or he would have accepted Voldemort's offer and he wouldn't have gotten that stone from the mirror and prevented Voldemort from getting it.

So yeah, it's so beautiful because it's the lightest version of the same ultimate crisis that Harry faces. Every single story about Right, you choose light, you choose dark. And I think in the back of his head we have Dumbledore, the mentor from back in the Mirror of Erised scene, not telling him what to do, but basically referring to this idea of wizards have wasted their. I've watched wizards and witches waste their lives away by staring aimlessly into the mirror and longing for things that they cannot have. So he has planted that in there. He can choose to go that route, which would end in his demise.

I don't think Voldemort had the intention of keeping Harry alive. You can choose what Voldemort would have chosen, and that's the whole thing. Harry and Voldemort are very similar but different. And even when you go back to really zero into Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone at the sorting hat moment not Slytherin, not Slytherin, not Slytherin even at that time, there's a lot to learn on the series about their black and white view and blind spots of sorting the houses so strictly as they do.

But ultimately that's one of his big things is I don't want to go to the dark side. I don't want to be a dark wizard. I will die before I go to the dark side. And when he goes after the stone he has, that he holds that in his heart, is what he's doing. I will die before I go to the dark side of that. So, not going to be dark, not going to become a dark wizard, and even in that moment that is reinforced again by the mentorship. He's had adequate mentors up to this point and it helps steer him in the right direction. But as a hero, he makes the choice that is, moving him towards becoming the hero versus stepping back towards a cautionary tale.

Right, which is so cool, so you can like nerd out with us in the actual book if you would like to. But we didn't mention in the last quadrant. So in the middle breakdown we end with pretty much a double negative right. So Voldemort's here, I need to step in. So it's a double negative. And then here we take us back into positive territory because Harry survived. He's temporarily defeated Voldemort. He's temporarily defeated Voldemort. He's saved his friends and his new place to belong and he's restored everyone's collective agency. So anything to add there before we wrap up this video, Abigail, and then we'll be back for another one about digging into Diagon Alley, but anything else to add Just that I love to use this tool as an editing tool, as an analysis tool.

This book is published, this book is a masterwork and, like we said, this is what we have come up with. There is subjectivity to this, but can you get to the same conclusion of how he survives and what he actually faces on the life and death spectrum with each scene? So it's fun if you see something different.

Yeah, and this is actually to that point when you're done with your first draft. This is a great tool the 20 core scenes to see. Do you have that through line? Do you have that central thread of the global story? And you're going to find that you don't in all situations, and that's very normal. Sometimes if I've seen writers where they try to do this too early and they don't quite know what their story is about, they have gaps, which is very normal, but they don't know it's normal, so they think everything's broken and they give up. So it's worth the exercise to study a masterwork and then just say when do these tools make sense for me in my practice, because you know that looks different for everybody. So, yeah, pick up the tools and put them down when you need them and don't need them, and we'll be back. We're going to dig into the Diagon Alley scene, which is super, super fun. So we will see you for that. All right, that's all I have for you today.

I hope you enjoyed this little behind the scenes. Look at what went into writing and editing the Story Grid Masterwork Analysis Guide to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. If you want to grab a copy of the book. Go to savannahgilbocom forward slash masterwork to get all the information, including where to purchase, and to see the bonuses I'm giving away for free with proof of purchase. So that's it for today's episode.

As always, thank you so much for tuning in and for showing your support. If you want to check out any of the links I mentioned in this episode, you can find them in the show notes listed in the description of each episode inside your podcast player or at savannahgilbocom forward slash podcast. If you're an Apple user, I'd really appreciate it if you took a few seconds to leave a rating and a review. Your ratings and reviews tell Apple that this is a podcast that's worth listening to and, in turn, your reviews will help this podcast get in front of more fiction writers just like you. And while you're there, go ahead and hit that follow button, because there's going to be another brand new episode next week, full of actionable tips, tools and strategies to help you become a better writer. So I'll see you next week and until then, happy writing.