Aren't most writers trying to do something broad; trying to bring alive some 'world' that their novel inhabits; or else trying to create a thriller situation, perhaps a mystery situation, a romance perhaps?
Then there are only a few who have the ability to come up with some 'original idea', and they hang a story around that.
Kafka does it - what if a man were to wake up in the morning and find himself metamorphosed into an insect; what if a man were to be accused of a crime, yet the authorities would never tell him what he was guilty of? These writers can come up with that one astonishing original idea, and they form a story around it.
But good ideas, really good ideas, are in fact rare. Lord Of The Flies is an expansion on one of these originals - what if a bunch of civilized schoolboys were marooned and were forced to 'start the tribe' all over again. And isn't it sweetly done. Its pace running towards disaster then rescue, its 'philosophy', its bold assertions claiming to reveal human nature.
There ought to be more recognition of these rare original ideas; perhaps a special shelf in the bookshop for them?
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