The Magic of Good Writing

I remember reading Harry Potter to my kids as each book came out.

I remember closing the first book in the series and thinking, this is something pretty special. When I closed the third book, I felt as if, not only were the characters magical, but that “magic” was a thing! I had just witnessed it. I was holding it in my hands.

And that feeling has visited me on several subsequent occasions with regard to books and a few movies. For years, I’ve been trying to extract the recipe to this secret sauce in writing. How did those writers, actors, directors, make magic?

HARRY POTTER, in particular, book 3, The Prisoner of Azkaban

MARY POPPINS, the latest remake, its ability to transport me to that sense of awe I felt as a child watching the early Disney version

HOLES, by Louis Sachar… and the movie with Shia LaBeouf

And most recently, YESTERDAY.

In this movie, struggling song-writer/musician, Jack Malik, is hit by a bus when the power goes out all over the world for just a few seconds. When he wakes, he discovers that he is the only person who remembers The Beatles.

But there is one scene in this movie, that took me so off guard, (and which I will not divulge in a spoiler fashion) that I felt it again. Zap. The Magic. There was a collective gasp in the theater as the air was sucked out of the room.

For sure, there is magic in the written word. It’s like the almost (now) cliché scene in which a character looks up at the moon from one corner of the world and feels their connection to someone on the other side of the planet who is also looking up at the same moon.

I like a good surprise, but that’s not, in and of itself, the “magic.” A good surprise makes me smile in appreciation, like a hat tip. “Nicely done, writer.”. When it sucks the air out of a packed theater? That’s magic.

(Please send recipes for "Magic Sauce" to sofie@sofiecouch.com.)