Can You Combine Two Lousy Ideas to Make a Bestselling Series?
It sounds ridiculous, but Jim Butcher proved it’s possible
A heated debate on main story concepts led to Jim Butcher’s bestselling series The Codex Alera.
One side of the argument claimed that a good enough central premise would make a great book, even if you were a lousy writer. The other side contended that the central concept was far less important than the execution of the story, and that the most overused central concept in the world could have life breathed into by a skilled writer.
It raged back and forth in an ALL CAPITAL LETTERS FLAMEWAR between a bunch of unpublished writers, and finally some guy dared me to put my money where my mouth was, by letting him give me a cheesy central story concept, which I would then use in an original novel.
Me being an arrogant kid, I wrote him back saying, “Why don’t you give me TWO terrible ideas for a story, and I’ll use them BOTH.”
The core ideas he gave me were Lost Roman Legion and Pokémon.” — Jim Butcher.
Combining the Lost Roman Legion and Pokémon into a single story sounds like an awful idea. But instead, Butcher used the ideas as inspiration to create a world containing elements of both.
Elements being a crucial factor!
