Is my story idea BIG enough? (What is High Concept?)
Whether you’re doing Preptober and Nanowrimo or not, this post with list of links to plotting and brainstorming tricks and tools will help. For wherever you are in your writing process!
Now, if you’re already fired up about your story idea, that’s awesome. But if you’re still not sure, it might help to:
Take a step back and spend some time musing about how you can find the BIGGEST idea in your random ideas—one that has real bestseller potential.
(Think about that word for a minute: Musing. It literally means consulting your muse!)
And even if you love your story idea, it’s good to ask yourself this question:
Can I take the story idea I’m already working with and layer in a HIgh Concept ELEMENT?
The new Netflix series Sitting in Bars with Cake has been getting a whole lot of publicity for both the TV series and the book it was adapted from. I wouldn’t call the story as high concept as some of the other examples I’ve listed below — but it did become a Thing—because of some high concept elements that the writers and filmmakers wisely exploited:
The book contained RECIPES for all those manbait cakes (recipes are a big sell to a significant slice of readers).
The series made great use of LOCATION: setting scenes in real-life, iconic bars from the SPECIAL WORLD of the LA bar scene.
That may not seem all that significant—but I only became aware of this series because I kept seeing articles online and in the newspapers I subscribe to about the LA bar scene—in reference to the series. Do you see what I’m saying? The setting of the book and series was irresistible for a pop culture news article. It generated buzz— a slew of publicity.
Also, you have to love that TITLE! There’s a WTF? factor to it that makes you look twice. All those articles I mentioned above kept using the word “cakebarring.” More buzz!
This is not high concept, but the series also hugely benefitted from a complex performance by the electric Odessa A’Zion, also mesmerizing in the short-lived Grand Army. A CHARACTER that good can keep a reader reading and a viewer viewing even through an uneven story like this one.
You can train yourself to be just as canny about High Concept. Putting some time into this is a career game-changer!
To help you get started, I’ve compiled a list below well-known High Concept books, movies and TV series. I suggest taking a good look at that list of examples, and brainstorm more movies and books of your own.
Because “Write what you most want to write” is always good advice. But let’s face it. If you want to make money at writing, there are business considerations to— consider.
Opening your mind to high concept elements might help you hit on an element or elements that will work for your own book or script to entice a much larger readership or audience, and bring you that bigger sale.
First, I want to say this:
If this is your very first book or script, the most important thing is to find an idea that you can finish:
An idea and characters and world that you can fall in love with, enough to keep you writing every day, at least for 15 minutes a day, for nine months or a year.
An idea that you can test from the beginning to see if there’s enough plot to finish the book: which I recommend you do with Index Cards. Even if you’re a pantser!
You need to find a writing community, online and in person, with experienced writers in it, that you can run your idea by to make sure other people will get excited about it, too.
And then you must write and FINISH the book.
No dual projects. No chasing after shiny new ideas.
In all the years I’ve been writing and teaching, I have never seen a beginning writer turn into a pro writer by writing on multiple projects. It’s not completely impossible, but the chances are abysmal. Suck it up and finish one.
And if this is your first book — never give up something you’re passionate about for commercial considerations. With your first book or script, you are essentially teaching yourself how to write. The only real requirement is that you love it.
But if you’ve been writing for a while, if you have one or two or maybe more under your belt, published or unpublished, we need to have a different conversation.
Because I want you all to love writing—but I also want you all to make a living! So—
What is High Concept? What is a Big Book?
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