Harry Potter was a smash hit about a boy discovering he’s a wizard and going to school in a magical world full of wonder and adventure. Twilight didn’t hit quite that high a note, but the story of a teenage girl who learns her classmate is a vampire and falls in love with him did quite well. The Hunger Games popularized the dystopian genre with a bow wielding teenager stepping up to survive death games, have angsty romances, and fight the power.
As far as I can tell, nothing has quite hit that same kind of high since and it may be awhile until the next truly big wave. But if it were up to you, what would the next big thing be about?
I’ve worked off and on with this idea I have about a brother and sister who are informed early in their lives that they’re destined to one day become rulers in the world where dreams go when we wake up, Narnia-style. However, when it actually happens, come to find out that not even the dream world people know why those two were chosen, there’s a lot of people who are really unhappy about the situation, and they’ve landed smack-dab in the middle of a centuries-old political powder keg that their sudden crowning has set off, eventually causing them to end up on opposite sides of a massive dream world war.
Also, the dream kingdom that they’re “destined” to become the rulers of? The Nightmares, whom exactly nobody likes and everyone has a major grudge against.
If you haven’t yet, read/watch The Magicians. Not quite the same plot, but >!they become kings and queens of their own narnia at some point. No one is particularly happy about this and they run into a lot of pushback “Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government…” style !<