TBF, the movie was released in 2001. Order of the Phoenix didn't come out until 2003. It wasn't yet apparent Neville was anything more than a bumbling, comic relief side character.
Cutting him from the movie scene made sense at the time.
She was pretty terrible at stuff like this. Forgot to include a scene of Harry picking up the mirror shard he'd use to see Aberforth so it just awkwardly shows up at the start of Deathly Hallows 2.
Writer here. It's somewhat true. We might think about the next book if we plan a series. But we sure don't think of every little detail. Especially during earlier parts of a book.
That's actually more of the same. In the commentary, they mentioned they put it in without having a real idea of how it was going to get used in the future.
A flip side of that can be seen in Battlestar Galactica, they killed off Starbuck and brought her back without knowing what it meant or where it's going.
So she just straight up vanishes mid-sentence in the finale.
To be fair, when I start a book I know how it will end. So these are things that I can hint at from page 1. I guess for writing a series this is similar. They probably have a hook and idea where they want to end up with. Which allows for something like the Nibbler. But I doubt they planned each little bit from all the seasons. And some plans also change (like Kristy, who was supposed to be Homer, which never made it into the actual simpson series)
I feel some of that depending on what I’m writing; for comic scripts/drafts I usually have a ladder I can refer back to when working on future issues, but there are still completely unplanned and unimportant elements, items, or characters from older stories I will pluck from early issues for later ones (never afraid to turn a random weird throwaway gag or reference into a macguffin). For prose, I usually know where I want to end up but that’s kinda it, I just see where the story takes me most of the time, I only plan for the most important set pieces.
Writers sometimes throw in stuff they might use later without actually knowing what it will be... ESPECIALLY on TV which usually involves teams of writers.
That’s likely more an example of retconning than mapping. Most writers will map, at most, a vague ladder of where the story is going and then reach back to use random elements from earlier works as plot devices. For a fantastic example of this, check out Red vs Blue, which started out as a gag based comedy and, as it evolved into a deeper narrative, turned most of the gags into pretty crucial parts of the narrative arcs.
You’d be surprised how many things you think were carefully thought out were just actually convenient retcons. The entire Infinity Saga, for example. Iirc one of the Marvel heads said there wasn’t much of a plan for it until after Civil War, yet it feels like a very intentional narrative (though in that case they did have the comics to work from, so for example littering Infinity stones around earlier films or dropping Thanos references was more of a “maybe this will come in handy in universe at some point” rather than a random retcon, but still, nobody knew it would end up at Endgame).
„Writer here“, like writing is some unanimously agreed upon algorithmic proccess and not a highly individual, creative pursuit. What you do does not apply to anyone, let alone everyone.
There are countless writers who actually do plan out entire series ahead of time, even famously so. Just because you, Rowling or Martin don‘t doesn‘t mean everyone doesn‘t.
Check out Yoko Taro's approach to creating stories. Starts with the end and draws back major plot points until reaching the start. Very interesting stuff.
I remember reading somewhere that Tolkien's son pointed a particular detail being incorrect in the second or third Lord of the Rings book & was not like what was depicted in the previous book or lore; Tolkien looks it up, sees that his son's correct, and changes the detail to match the original one.
Though I am kind of weird as a writer and I dislike it if every open question gets answered (sometimes the main character just isn't in a position to know, in which case I prefer to leave it open) or every resource gets used (sometimes something is present somewhere that makes sense for the main character to take or buy, but he won't find an use for in story), but that also means that if I ever want to write a sequel, I always have hooks to use and resources to spend.
George RR Martin started ASOIAF because he was fed off fantasy series that had to many characters, too many locations, too many diverging plotlines that in the end the overall story got stuck.
40 years later, his series died of poor planning, too many characters, too many locations, too many diverging plotlines and not knowing what to do with any of them.
George RR Martin has had a plan for the books for the entire time he’s been writing them, complete with constant foreshadowing and book spanning plots from characters. He is absolutely not dying of poor planning, he’s dying of the fact that he has so many characters doing so many things that it becomes hard to continue their individual stories. He’s also old as shit, working on like three projects nearly constantly, and he has to deal with the things he actually does mess up at planning.
From the start though, he was always writing a story with many plot lines in many different locations. I mean shit, none of the pov characters are even in the same city from the end of the first book
depending on the topic that is quite underselling other writers.
to name a great example:
time travel.
any basic writer will put specific limitations on time travel to make sure, that time travel doesn't invalidate any upcoming death of characters or other events, because "just take the time turner and fix it" would the answer here.
so for smaller things, sure you are right, but for bigger crucial things writers do think ahead.
you make time travel sth, that could basically only have happened once or was a super rare occurrence, so that you get time travel, but it doesn't invalidated anything happening after it gets introduced.
NOT just kidding rowling though. no no time travel gets used to study more and save lives, BUT just for one book ok and then never again and please forget, that this ever happened now...
terrible writing and such mistakes don't get made by decent writers.
ALL of the Turners got broken during the Ministry raid, yes that's right ALL of them, and also nobody used any during the two year interim between when they started existing in Y3 and all simultaneously broke in Y5, and also all the batteries powering them ran out trust me bro
This is why Robert Jordan died before finishing the wheel of time that was originally one book, then two, then it was going to be a trilogy and now there are 14 books.
Sanderson basically also commented on that when discussing his next Mistborn series. He felt that the second era didn't feel cohesive enough due to largely writing them one book at a time...so for the next trilogy, he's just writing the entire trilogy prior to releasing the first book.
But he can also afford that, being pretty much in the top tiers of fantasy authors in terms of financial success.
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u/Petrostar 3d ago
TBF, the movie was released in 2001. Order of the Phoenix didn't come out until 2003. It wasn't yet apparent Neville was anything more than a bumbling, comic relief side character.
Cutting him from the movie scene made sense at the time.