This Top 5 Tuesday meme is hosted by the Bionic Bookworm. Go check out her topics for the rest of August.
I’m not sure the words I picked qualify as ‘buzzwords’ but they are words (or maybe concepts) that I find irresistible when I find them in a synopsis.
ARCHNEMESIS
Rand al’Thor vs. The Dark One. Harry Potter vs. Voldemort. Batman vs. The Joker!! There’s just something about archnemeses. A nemesis is fine. It makes for a good story, as long as it hasn’t been done poorly. But when two people/groups have been battling for what seems like forever, everything just has more levels of depth. Each character’s story, motives, feelings, point-of-view are there enforce. By the end (if there is an end) the opposing forces are connected in some way. They could almost feel like friends.
DYSTOPIAN
A lot of people are sick of dystopian stories, but so far, I just can’t get enough. Big, scary government in an all-but-destroyed world? Yes, please! I think what people get sick of is when dystopian stories start looking too much alike. Dystopian can be a big, wide genre, but when they all start pitting people against each other in a survivalist situation, well… That’s when we end up with The Hunger Mazient Rising. There’s a lot of gold to come from this mini-genre.
MONSTER
I love monsters. Demons, vampires, werewolves, zombies, or better yet, some kind of monster I haven’t even heard of before! If your book has a cool monster with well-thought out mythology and the whole thing is brand new to me… you’ve got my money.
ASSASSIN
Oh, man. Is there anything cooler than an assassin? Probably, but they’re way up there. Schools of assassins, assassins vs. assassins, assassins on a lifelong search for personal happiness and pirate treasure… It’s all good.
PARALLEL UNIVERSE
This might be my favourite of them all. The possibilities are endless. It’s a tough thing to screw up, but when someone finds really exciting and unique possibilities, that’s when things get really interesting.
Great choices! Archnemesis and parallel universe would definitely be on my list as well!
Thanks!
Oh Archnemesis is a great choice! Parallel universes and time travel is another one that I’m usually all over. Great list! Thanks for participating 🙂 Adding you to the list now!
Time travelling! That is another good one. At least it can be. Time travelling is easy to do poorly…
I still need to read Nevernight. I loved the Shades of Magic trilogy!
I’m really excited to read the Shades of Magic trilogy at some point soon, and it was the whole parallel universe thing that pulled me in for that one, so I can definitely agree with that being on this list!
I NEARLY put dystopian on my list. I still love them. Yes, there are bad ones, but isn’t that like any book genre/sub-genre? Great choices! I get the impression from all your buzzwords together that you enjoy dark novels. 🙂
Hmm… Maybe. I’ve never considered that. What do you mean by dark novels? Examples?
Ah yes I love parallel universes!! And arch-nemeses, monsters and assassins are always welcome. The trouble with dystopias, like you said, is that they’re starting to all look the same. I also prefer when they have to elements that classic dystopias had which so many modern YA books are missing: that they have a fundamental reason/message for being dystopic and that the idea they’ve constructed makes sense.