Imagining Diadem

One of the most common questions asked of an author is “Where do you get your ideas?” The true, if unhelpful, answer tends to be “all sorts of places.” Sometimes we know what started an idea; other times, we haven’t a clue. With the Diadem series, I know exactly where the idea came from.

I was asked by my editor if I could create a fantasy series of novels that had the feel of a computer game. Naturally, I told him that this was the easiest thing in the world, conveniently glossing over one minor problem — I don’t play computer games. The fact is that I’m so bad at them, I don’t even try. On the other hand, I love a good board game, so I decided that what worked for one might work for the other. The aim of any game, of course, is to get to the winning square. So I started out with the idea of a journey to a winning square.

One of the problems with creating a book series is that you need a concept that’s open enough to allow you to write stories without repeating yourself. Most series tend to be quests — you know, looking for the one-armed man who really killed your wife, or trying to find a way home, or seeking out new life and new civilizations. The problem with quests is that you can’t have them solved, because then you’re out of a storyline. With Diadem, I decided that I needed to avoid both problems. As a result, the main villain gets killed off relatively early — no long, drawn-out fights to last the whole series. Instead, new villains turn up conveniently for the next story.

As for the setting, I went back to the board game — a different square for each story. In the Diadem, each move is to a new planet. That way, each story has a fresh setting so it doesn’t get boring, but if there’s a place I particularly like, I can always go back to it again. So I had the best of all worlds — quite literally.

The next task was to create the characters that would undergo the journeys. This is always crucial to any series, because if the reader doesn’t like the characters, then they won’t read the books. With children’s stories, an important point is the “me” factor. Children like stories best when they feature a character that allows the reader to think, “This could be me. If only I lived on a space ship, or went to a school where they teach magic. ...” So the characters had to be about the age of the readers (you can always fudge the age part a bit), and they had to have identifiable traits and problems.

Given that I was being asked to create a series that had the feel of a computer game, then one part of
the target audience was clearly computer users. So, the first character is a kid who lives in virtual reality, but
who comes out of it to see what the
real world is like. Pixel is naive, sweet and a bit of a klutz. Now, for stories to be fun, you need at least three characters that are as different as possible. Therefore,

the second kid, Score, is someone who’s smart, capable and not so likeable. He’s a boy from New York (where else?), and he’s looking out for number one. He and Pixel can’t possibly agree on very much. Now, of course, there must be a female character

for the girl readers to identify with, and to make things interesting. Since we have a kid from the future and one from the present, she has to be from the past, for balance. But in the past, girls were supposed to be weak and helpless, and to rely on men. That would get dull really quickly, both for me and the readers.

Instead, she’s the opposite — she pretends to be a sweet, subservient young girl, but she’s actually disguised herself as a boy and studied war. Ah! Much more interesting! So Helaine is the fighter in the group, not one of the boys. Put the three together, give them a common enemy and — well, you don’t need to be a brilliant writer to discover that you’ve got a fast-paced, fun storyline. Throw in some monsters, a herd of unicorns, goblins, were-creatures and magicians, and there’s a great formula for a whole bunch of stories. Welcome to the worlds of the Diadem!