Conception
The Casual Vacancy is Rowling's first novel after the Harry Potter series, the best-selling book series in historyRowling first had the idea on an aeroplane to the United States, whilst on tour for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Referring to the original conception of the Harry Potter series on a train from Manchester to London, Rowling said "Obviously I need to be in some form of vehicle to have a decent idea. This time I was on a plane. And I thought: local election! And I just knew. I had that totally physical response you get to an idea that you know will work. It's a rush of adrenaline, it's chemical. I had it with Harry Potter and I had it with this. So that's how I know."[8]
Rowling's movement from children's literature to adult literature arose from being "ready to change genre".[9] Referring to the Harry Potter series Rowling commented, "The thing about fantasy—there are certain things you just don't do in fantasy. You don't have sex near unicorns. It's an ironclad rule. It's tacky."[9] Critics questioned whether younger Harry Potter fans might be drawn into wanting to read the book, Rowling responded saying, "There is no part of me that feels that I represented myself as your children's babysitter or their teacher. I was always, I think, completely honest. I'm a writer, and I will write what I want to write."[9]
Rowling rejected Little, Brown's claims that the book was a "black comedy", saying in an interview with The New Yorker, "It's been billed, slightly, as a black comedy, but to me it's more of a comic tragedy." If the novel had precedents, "it would be sort of nineteenth-century: the anatomy and the analysis of a very small and closed society."[9]
Choice of title
For two years, the working title of the novel was Responsible, until Rowling picked up Charles Arnold-Baker's work on local government, Local Council Administration, whilst looking something up and came across the term "casual vacancy."[9] The New Yorker questioned Rowling's original choice of title, and she remarked "This is a book about responsibility. In the minor sense—how responsible we are for our own personal happiness, and where we find ourselves in life—but in the macro sense also, of course: how responsible we are for the poor, the disadvantaged, other people’s misery."[9]
