Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/24744
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Originality is almost impossible to achieve. All modern works of fiction have predecessors who have worked in similar settings, showing similar themes. Rowling may be the best-known example of the magic-in-a-boarding-school setting, but there are many well-known (and perhaps [not-so-well-known but still worthy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_Magic_(Doyle_and_Macdonald_novels))) predecessors. Hunger Games may be the most popular example of its kind, but there were certainly predecessors of that too (e.g. [Among the Hidden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Among_the_Hidden) and its sequels). And as pointed out in the comments, have been a thing just about forever, and the romance between Buffy and Angel in the _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ TV series was arguably even more popular than Twilight was (at least in terms of sales of the book before the movie was released -- movies are great marketing).

The important thing is to do what you do _well_, which all of these books did, and to be _original enough for the reader_ -- but possibly not _too original_ as the conventions of a comfortable, familiar genre often provide the best marketing of all (and is probably at least part of why genres with strong conventions -- romance and crime fiction, for example -- sell particularly well).

Original score: 2