The great leap that is The Goblet of Fire

What happened in Jo Rowling's life between the time she finished book 3 and began book 4?


As I have said before, I LOVE The Prisoner of Azkaban. It is my favourite of the seven Harry Potter novels (though The Deathly Hallows comes a close second). It is deep and dark and beautifully told, with a tightly drawn plot and an amazingly suspenseful climax and conclusion.


But there is something about the opening chapters of The Goblet of Fire that suggests, to me at least, that Rowling started writing the fourth novel in a fit of joyous confidence, in complete control of her craft, finding delight in the mere application of pen to paper.


For the first time in the series, Rowling spends an extended period of time away from Harry Potter at the start of the fourth book. She takes us to Little Hangleton, the mystery of the Riddle house and the plight of poor Frank Bryce. She flexes her authorial muscles in moving her writing up a level, into a more adult narrative voice and approach, creating scenes that seem to leave behind the childlike innocence of the first three novels.


The story of the Weasley's visit to 4 Privet Drive and Harry's time at the Burrow is told with unbridled joy, bringing with it laugh-out-loud moments and crystal clear characterizations.


Then, almost as if she were arriving at a party that she had been eagerly anticipating for several years, Rowling bursts into creative delight with the scenes at the Quidditch World Cup. This is Rowling at her best, as if she had been waiting all her life to write about this event.


This is also where she first begins to show us the depth and detail of the magical world she has created and her absolute mastery of it. She demonstrates her ability to control much more complex plots and much larger casts of characters, creating spellbinding scenes which, we find out later, are literally littered with little, seemingly throwaway details, that will become very important as the stories develop through the fourth, fifth and following novels.


My guess is that, after book two succeeded beyond her wildest dreams and book three also showed the same promise, Rowling sat down to write The Goblet of Fire with a new sense of confidence that she would be able to carry out her planned seven-book journey. Whether she felt more relaxed, because the pressure to prove herself was now off, or more tense, because she suddenly had the expectations of the entire world placed upon her, Rowling seems to have hit her stride at the start of Book Four, to have committed herself to her exquisitely detailed overall plot, to have given herself permission to explore more thoroughly her characters and themes, to have learned to trust herself and her instincts as she moved forward.


It's a pretty awesome thing to witness, even now as I read the books again for perhaps the 20th time.