Tuesday, May 8, 2007

My one and only Harry Potter post - ever

Fuse 8 said in a recent post that every kidlit blogger is contractually obligated to write at least 2 Harry Potter pieces per week. Alas, I will be breaking that contract. (Although, maybe children's author blogs aren't the same as kidlit blogs?)

I am not a Harry Potter person. I've read the first two and after that.....not so much.

I just finished copyedits for my next middle grade novel (Greetings from Nowhere). One of the secondary characters was named Clyde Riddle.

FSG's world's-best-copyeditor, Elaine Chubb (who RETIRED May 1!!! Elaine, how could you???), pointed out the fact that many children may relate the name Riddle with Harry Potter - and in a negative way.

Who knew?

I confess that at first I sorta kinda doubted her. I mean, were kids SO into Harry Potter that they would get hung up about the name of a secondary character? But I ran it by an author message board comprised of many well-respected folks and they all agreed with her.

So....I had to CHANGE his name. Now, understand, that's a big, big, big deal for me. I never ever ever change names of characters. Names are really really really important to me. I can't even START a book until all the character names are perfect. So to change one was PAINFUL.

But, I did it.

There. That's my Harry Potter post.

1 comment:

Kimberley Griffiths Little said...

I'm another so-so Harry Potter fan. I read the first book out loud with my youngest son and haven't read ANY of the other books. I fell asleep on the couch when we rented the fourth movie. Course, it was at the end of a looong week with lots of late nights so I think I would have fallen asleep during any video.
I think the Harry Potter books are imaginative and fun, but there are way too many wonderful books out there to spend my time reading what is basically the same book over and over again. I don't have enough *life* to read all the books I want to read already.
Does anybody else worry that they're going to die before they get a chance to read all the books they want to? Or am I just weird that way?