News from the Wizarding World

[Prof. Sky Alton]

This is a section to have some fictional fun with. It’s for articles written in the style of genuine news that might appear in a wizarding newspaper/magazine, like the Daily Prophet or even The Quibbler. News of escaped nifflers, a review of the latest fashions at Madam Malkins or an interview with Celestina Warbeck would all belong here.
If you have trouble coming up with ideas, the Idea Bank has suggestions which you may use, but your are of course always more than welcome to create your own. Whether you use something from the Idea Bank or your own idea, you must always present your idea in the appropriate thread and have it approved. When you do, make sure to note whether someone else has claimed something similar.

How to Write Them
You should be doing your best to emulate real newspaper articles in tone and structure here. Maybe leaf through your Harry Potter books for some samples of what’s appeared in the Prophet before to give you an idea of the style.
You should be using the third person most of the time. If you’re writing from the point of view of a special correspondent or investigator though, using the first person might sometimes work better.
Remember that you can use extra material like eye witness accounts or quotes from relevant people to spice things up.
Structure is very important in newspaper articles so make sure you don’t ‘bury the lead’ by only getting to the meat of the story 3 paragraphs down.

Canon
Please try to stick to the Wizarding World as we know it in terms of how things work, established chronology and what is possible with magic. Feel free to create events, places, characters or magical creatures though, providing you don’t go too overboard. Basically, don’t create anything so massively earth shattering that it will undermine what other people have written.
We’ll be acting as though these really are articles written from 2021 onwards so try to keep that in mind if you reference any characters or events from the Harry Potter franchise. The battle of Hogwarts happened in 1998, so we don’t want to see Voldemort randomly popping up anywhere now.

Requirements
You can earn 10 points for articles of 150 words or more, 15 for articles of 200 words or more and 20 for articles of 300 words or more. There is no maximum length but if we think an article is too long, we’ll chat to you about splitting it up into a series.