Case Study: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Plot Breakdown

It’s widely recognised that Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (or Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone in the US) follows the Hero’s Journey very closely.

The Novel Factory team have done a breakdown of the high level plot elements of the first Harry Potter book, to show how the first few steps of the Roadmap (a ‘learn as you write’ step-by-step guide to writing a novel) work in a case study.

This is helpful in order to understand what makes a great book work, and also to see novel writing structure theory (such as premise, skeleton and short synopsis) in action in the wild.

The best way to use this resource is to open it in the Novel Factory.

If you don’t already have the Novel Factory installed, then you can download it here. There’s a free trial period, which you can use to view this file.

If you’re new to the Novel Factory and / or the Roadmap, then click on the little blue question mark icons beside the planning sections to learn more about what makes a good premise, story skeleton, etc.

We intend to complete the Scene Synopses section for the Philosopher’s Stone next – so keep an eye out for that!