When you write with the goal of publication, you're writing something you hope people will pay money for in the future. Whether it's an inexpensive ebook or a hefty collectible hardbound edition is up to you (or your publisher) but one thing remains the same: If you want people to pay for your writing, you need to make sure they're getting their money's worth.

Think of your writing as a meal at a restaurant. Most hardback books cost $20 and up, so you're looking at a decent steak dinner or at the least a fancy hamburger and appetizer combo. If you ask people to pay that $20 and then serve up a dollar menu item what will your readers think?

Diagon Alley.

The Knight Bus.

The Quidditch World Cup.

Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.

Hogwarts.

These were not places that existed in our imaginations before we met Harry Potter, but for many readers they are now as real as Times Square.

If we, as writers, look to JK Rowling for tips on how to make our own books better (as we have been doing here at The Editorial Department for the past week), perhaps the biggest lesson is this: create a world the reader will remember.

The world that Rowling built for Harry Potter is vibrant in its detail and extravagant in its creativity. She takes well-known fantasy archetypes - wizards, trolls, giants, dragons, goblins - and drops them, unexpectedly, into the present day. According to Rowling, we could see them on our modern streets before they disappear back into the fantasy world of castles and quills.

It's Harry Potter time here at The Editorial Department, and in honor of the final movie release (well, Part One of it) we're looking at what can we learn from JK Rowling's popular series that will help us in our own writing endeavors. We've talked about two different aspects of plotting - holding some information back while still preparing readers for the big surprises. Now we're ready to look at characterization with Principle Number Three:

Heroes have hormones.

Harry Potter is a classic hero - young, idealistic, brave, and very lucky. He fights his darkest enemy for the first time at age eleven and wins. He hops onto a broomstick and becomes an instant jock. He, literally, slays dragons. And he does it all with modesty and two faithful sidekicks.

If that was the only Harry Potter we found on the page - calmly accepting challenges, coming to irrefutable conclusions, and waging war, he would have been a good bloke to watch for a book, but then the romance would be over. Harry Potter would be boring. A perfect character, one who always has the right answer and never makes a misstep, quickly becomes a caricature.

This week we're talking about Harry Potter. No, not the much-anticipated movie that's releasing this week (although I, for one, already have my ticket). We're talking about the books that started it all, and the lessons that authors can apply in their own Works In Progress.

Principle Two: Chekov had a gun; Trelawney had a prophecy.

Being patient and letting a story unfold does not mean that a writer should hold back major plot twists until the last minute. Within writing there is a literary technique called Chekov's gun - an element is introduced early in the story, but its significance does not become clear until later. "One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it," he wrote.

There aren't many guns in Rowling's tales, but readers quickly learn that seemingly offhanded comments prepare readers for unexpected revelations. Hagrid's mentioning Sirius the night Harry's parents died prepares readers, almost without their noticing, for the inclusion of Sirius into the story later; they have already crossed a certain barrier of plausibility about his involvement because they have known for some time that he was there.

This week-and probably for weeks to come-everyone will be talking about The Boy Who Lived. It's hard to believe it's been thirteen years since we first met Harry Potter, the wizard hero of JK Rowling's epic series. In anticipation of the movie that launches the quest for the Deathly Hallows, I decided to re-read the entire series, all 3407 pages (in the Bloomsbury editions) spanning seven books. I found not just a captivating, imaginative story, but lessons in great storytelling applicable to all writers who are creating novels of their own.

We'll explore five ideas over the next few days, and look for applications to your own writing.

"Some days I feel quite confident, but other days..." -Susannah Goodson

I'm borrowing Susannah's quote from our Facebook wall because it rings so true to the writing life. One of the universal truths of writing is that it is a solitary activity. No matter how involved you are with writing groups or online communities, it always comes down to you versus yourself. Stories are created in our brains and can only be shared with others when we find the right words to express them. Writing is a neverending search for the correct words to take abstract concepts--emotion, sensory input, philosophical musings--and make them understandable to a reader. The longer you're left alone with your words, the easier it becomes to lose confidence in your writing. The doubts creep in, the inner editor laughs at your attempts to string words together, and you start to wonder why you even bother to write. Add to that the anxiety of sending your words out into the world to an editor or agent and that second career as a burger flipper starts to look a lot more appealing.

We've all been there.

For the past couple of months I have been a frequent participant in the twitter-based Scribe Chat. During one of our discussions of writing craft, we hit upon the idea of creating a book club  which would focus on memoirs of the writing life and books on craft and technique. Lia Keyes, author and creator of Scribe Chat, and I selected Betsy Lerner's The Forest for the Trees as our first title and we'll be discussing it during this week's Scribe Chat on twitter.You're welcome to participate whether you've read the book or not. Topics will include the author-editor relationship, and the many types of writers.

If you've never participated in a twitter chat before, I recommend reading Twitter Chats for Writers: A Quick Guide to brush up on the basics. It's simple to participate, but chats tend of move quickly and it can be difficult for a first-timer to keep up. Luckily, the chat is recorded, so you can read the transcript later at your leisure. You do not need a twitter account to follow the chat, but you do need one if you wish to contribute to the conversation.

This year I was honored to be on the faculty of The Word Guild's annual Write!Canada writer's conference in Guelph, Ontario--five hours due east of my house. This was my first time attending a writer's conference as a freelance editor instead of an in-house acquisitions editor, and the difference might seem subtle but it is important. Before, my take on your manuscript was important for how I could make all your publishing dreams come true; now, I'm just a guy with an opinion. I agreed to come and meet with writers, but I really didn't expect for too many of the writers there to waste their time with an opinionated powerless guy. But from previous experience, I knew that the Canadian writers who attend the conference are usually fun, quirky folks who kindly chuckled at my international traveler persona, so I looked forward to the experience.

I wasn't disappointed; the conference was great, and I had many good conversations about the Christian book industry, about self-publishing and indie publishing and the difference between them, and about books and writing in general. I had dozens of one-on-one appointments where I met with aspiring writers and discussed their work with them, both on quality of craft and viability in the marketplace.

And I feel like I learned something on behalf of the aspiring writer: freelance editors offer a unique and vital perspective on your work.

In ghostwriting and collaborating on three books in the past two years, the biggest challenge by far was coming up with a voice the author was happy with. It may sound like a simple proposition, but nailing it can be as hard as catching an eel.

It comes down to how much or how little the author gives you to work with. In one case, the author (unpublished) took a crack at a first draft himself, and while it was a long way from the final draft, he provided a usable voice to build on--half the battle was over and I hadn't written a word. In another case, the author had written other books and had had his own TV series. A veritable cacophony of voices to work with, right? Actually, for his new book, he wanted a new voice, one with a more serious tone than his past voices. OK, I thought, I'll interview him and he'll speak in the voice he's going for, right? Alas, he wasn't much for talking. Ninety-five percent of the information we would cover in the book was to come from research. It soon became clear that I was to fabricate a voice for him. Hoo boy.

Wait--shouldn't that be easy? Writing without parameters? Creating the voice I want to use? You want to sound intelligent and authoritative? Have I got a voice for you.

We're all avid readers here at The Editorial Department, and while reading for entertainment is a favorite pastime, it never hurts to take a more critical look at the pages (or e-ink) in our hands. This review of the First 50 pages is an exercise in analyzing story craft, but also contains a special offer on editing services. Be sure to click the "read more" to find all the details.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)

Flap Copy: He's handsome and charming, but something in his past has made him abide by a different set of rules. He's a serial killer whose one golden rule makes him immensely likable: He only kills bad people.

Ross's Take: Though Darkly Dreaming Dexter was a book that for me left a lot to be desired from a craft standpoint, there's a good deal the author does really well in terms of pacing, story setup, drawing readers into the world of this story and setting the stage for a series of books that later became a successful TV series.

Chapter 1: The book opens with this:  Moon. Glorious Moon. Full, fat Reddish moon, the night as light as day, the moonlight flooding down across the land and bringing joy, joy, joy.

First, a confession...Had this book not been recommended to me I probably would have stopped reading right there. The last thing I want out of a crime thriller/dark comedy hybrid is something that felt like a labored effort at literary style. But fortunately, this line isn't really reflective of the tone of the narrative. The writing is, in general, much more straightforward and down to earth. Prety darn readable, actually.

A more important point is that by one page into the scene, readers see that protagonist Dexter Morgan is in serial killer mode and stalking his prey. It looks like things are likely to end badly for Father Donovan and though readers don't yet know of the golden rule the flap copy alludes to, it becomes pretty clear pretty quick that this priest is no saint and may well deserve what seems like an inevitable demise. A tense scene follows as Dexter ambushes the man and brings him back to some kind of lair, where the rotting corpses of seven children are waiting. It's not stated explicitly but the implication is that Father Donovan killed and perhaps sexually abused these children and probably others. The 13-page chapter ends with Dexter telling readers simply that he "went to work."