Writer Sanctum

Writer's Haven => Quill and Feather Pub [Public] => Topic started by: Vidya on June 09, 2020, 07:18:57 PM

Title: What’s hot right now?
Post by: Vidya on June 09, 2020, 07:18:57 PM

Are Magic Academy novels or fantasies about students attending magic schools still doing well or is the trend waning?

Is reverse harem still popular? I’d have thought that trend must be saturated by now.

What other trends are hot right now and will they continue to be hot for some time?

Anyone tried mixing two hot trends? Eg, some writers use reverse harem set in a magic school.

I have no interest in writing reverse harem, so I’m looking for any other hot tropes or trends I might cross with a magic school.

Title: Re: What’s hot right now?
Post by: PJ Post on June 10, 2020, 01:05:06 AM

Not sure about books, but episodic streaming shows are still doing magic schools (and adjacent) as YA settings:

(https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.spoilertv.com/images/headers/the-magicians.jpg)

(https://freeform.azureedge.net/showms/2020/62/9807ab9c-54c1-4fb7-975e-6577af0e5b72.jpg)

(https://tvseriesfinale.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/legacies-cw-season-1-ratings-e1540500554960.jpeg)

(https://fanart.tv/fanart/tv/338947/tvthumb/the-chilling-adventures-of-sabrina-5bd2e778c16c6.jpg)

And there's a ton of popular, non-school specific shows that have magic as a central theme.

This one isn't magical, but it's got the same vibe in terms of themes and demographics.

(https://cdn.collider.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/utopia-falls-poster-slice.jpg)

I think the trick is figuring out a theme to explore, something that can bind the different elements of the mashup together so that they create a cohesive and believable narrative/setting - call it a conflict skeleton. The other thing to be aware of is that fans of one genre won't necessarily jump to another, even if it has some of the things they like. The best bet would be to find trending genres that are already pretty close, demographically speaking, to the magical YA world.