Above: Charting Hallmarked Man, Oklahoma City, October 2025
Three days ago in ‘The Heart of Ring Composition’ I shared a Perennialist or Estecean interpretation of why writing stories in a circular or chiastic structure is both a universal story form and why it has such a powerful effect on a reader or listener even though they are unconscious of its presence. I promised in ‘Heart’ that the next post for paid subscribers would be much more down to earth, as in ‘How a Ring Composition Works,’ its essential qualities, how to recognize them, with some fun examples.
I want to keep that promise, so below the jump you’ll find the video link to and transcript of a talk on these subjects I gave for my seven week online Harry Potter course, ‘Wizard Reading Formula (WRF).’ It starts with a brief history of how I learned about ring writing via Mary Douglas’ Thinking in Circles and C. S. Lewis’ Ransom Trilogy and then dives into the ring sine qua nons: the latch, the turn, and the turtleback lines. It includes quick looks at Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Lolita, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and their similar but different ring shapes.
I close with thoughts about what to me is a head-shaking mystery regarding ring writing. If Douglas, perhaps the greatest anthropologist and textual exegete of the 20th Century, was right that this is (a) the universal form of human-story and (b) that the human brain is hardwired to receive such story-frames, why was she convinced that it effectively disappeared around the time of Tristram Shandy? If chiastic writing is cued to conform with the receptivity factors of the imagination or mind, how could such a way to tell stories have disappeared? Why do we struggle to see even relatively obvious parallelisms in Rowling’s beloved books, stories we have read repeatedly?
In paid subscriber posts to come, I will be sending out parts of a WRF workshop I did on Kidnapped and Career of Evil, some blank charts for the Parts of Hallmarked Man we’ll be charting together, and then video discussions of how I charted each Part and the book as a whole with commentary on other readers’ graphing.
Thank you for subscribing to this Serious Strikers and Potter Pundits community discussion of Rowling’s work, and, as always, thank you for sharing your questions about, insights beyond, and corrections of ‘The Mechanics and Mystery of Ring Composition’ in the comment boxes. Special thanks, of course, to our paid subscribers for making this Strike 8 charting adventure possible.
Cheers!
