So a friend and I have been batting around the whole “high concept” idea for a couple days. This certainly isn’t a new topic. When I first discovered the online community of writers a couple years ago, plenty of them were discussing it then. Many of them confident they not only understood it, but had completely conquered it. I think most of them are still confused.
The classic example of high concept is Jurassic Park. Man opens amusement park with real, live cloned dinosaurs. Short and sweet it tells you what the book is about AND that it is something new and different. This is where I think most writers get lost. Having a high concept book doesn’t just mean you can boil it down to 25 words or less. High concept ideas are hard–at least for most of us. They have to be something that grabs you. Something that when you hear it, you think, Gee, I wish I thought of that. That’s brilliant.
So, if you want to write high concept–and more and more that’s all agents and editors want to see–or if you want to test to see if your book is high concept, here’s a link for you. I think it explains it better than about any article I’ve read to date.
Great article–at this point, I’m just aiming for little old “concept”
by MartyK September 21st, 2005 at 7:42 am