February 8, 2008

“High Concept”

Did you ever stop to think about the way ideas are pitched to movie producers or book publishers? There is something called the “high concept” that is widely used and accepted. Basically, it’s the culling down of a storyline into a sentence of about 25 words or less. It’s supposed to grab the producer or editor’s attention and make them say, “Wow – I haven’t seen that done before!”

I’ll give you a few examples. The movie Gladiator: Roman general is made a gladiator-slave and strives to kill the emperor as revenge for killing his family. Harry Potter: Boy wizard attends a school for child witches/wizards and learns he might be the single defense against the most evil wizard in the world. While You Were Sleeping: Woman dramatically saves man’s life and circumstances lead his family to believe she is his fiance, but she falls in love with his brother.

There could be other, even more hook-y one-liners to describe these films, and any author or screenwriter could take these high concepts and turn them into their own story. The way these particular ones were executed, though, worked just great!

What about books? The high-concept line for my last two books, A Warrior’s Taking and the sequel Temptation of the Warrior (out in April, 2008) is: To save their clan, two warrior-sorcerers must travel in time and space to search for a powerful talisman in 19th century England, but each one falls in love with a woman, and neither can take her home with him. (Oops - too long. I’ll have to work on that!) Then each book has its own one-liner, more specific to the book.

Can you come up with a few high-concept lines for your favorite movies or books? Try some Jane Austen. It’s fun.

  2 Responses to ““High Concept””

1. On February 8th, 2008 at 6:50 am
   Shana Says:
   

   I think high concept is a great selling tool, but I sometimes wonder if it doesn’t make stories that are quieter harder to sell. I mean, there are great books that aren’t high concept. Anyone run into this or feel that books are getting too gimmicky?

2. On February 8th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
   Kathryn Says:
   

   I had never heard of high concept. It’s a lot harder than it looks; I am always amazed by people who can be clear and concise summarizing something.

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