The Hunger Games: Suzanne Collins

So, I finished reading The Hunger Games over the weekend. If this were any other book review, I’d go on about its virtues (and, trust me, there’s quite a few), but I really don’t care about that. What I really want to know was what made the book tick? What gave it the edge? You see, I, too, dream of reaching that coveted bestseller list one day and if I have to dig in and rip out the beating heart of The Hunger Games—literally speaking, of course—to find its bestselling ingredient, well, so be it.

And here’s what I found.

The number one reason why The Hunger Games was a bestseller, in my most humble opinion, was because ...

Drum roll please ...

High Stakes

I’m sorry, but putting kids in an arena to kill each other ups the ante to a whole new level. It also adds an unsettling factor. It was cool with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Running Man, but kids? Really? It brings back images of Lord of the Flies, which left me uncomfortable even then.

Of course, we all know that The Hunger Games wouldn’t have been nearly as appealing without its memorable characters, but without the stakes that Collins presented it just wouldn’t had been the same book or, in my opinion, had the same appeal.

So this is how she did it:

1. The Hunger Games had only one winner—everyone else dies.
2. The two main characters weren’t even considered contenders at first. The assumption was that they’d just die in the initial scramble.
3. Knowing this, Collins developed relationships between the characters even though the relationships were doomed because ...
4) All the characters wanted to stay alive, which is one of the most fundamental human drives.

In the end, what does The Hunger Games teach us? If we want to be the next bestseller, we need to keep raising the stakes. If it seems dire, make it dreadful. If it seems dreadful, make it cataclysmic. If it seems cataclysmic, make it … well, you get the idea.