High Concept

If you are anything like me, you read the phrase High Concept and wrinkle your brow. Nicola Morgan has a talent for explaining things in terms I can understand, and I bless her time and again when she does. Here's her succinct explanation of High Concept: "Essentially, a book with an extra-strong hook. A high-concept novel is one which is easy to sell because the idea has wow factor and is easy to explain very quickly. The wow factor often comes from a sense of, “Why didn’t I think of that? That’s going to sell in shedloads. Damn it.”

High Concept often means High Stakes. The fact that you fancied a married man and bravely decided to give him up for the sake of your family is not exactly High Stakes to anyone else, though it may be to you. No one is going to die even if you do decide to kick over the traces and run off to Marrakech, though a few are going to be pretty miserable for a while. High Stakes fictionally means at least the risk death for the hero, and sometimes the end of the world. Hopefully it also means that the writing will be good.

 High Concept usually means you can easily explain the premise and that it will grab attention - for example: Life of Pi by Yann Martel. The tag line that sold it was something like a boy shipwrecked on powerless boat with dying zebra, hyena and tiger called Richard Parker. For a long time I took one look at that and thought to myself What Rot. I studiously avoided reading it for almost two years, but I never forgot it. Then it became an acclaimed film, appeared on Kindle at 20p and I couldn't resist any longer. For 20p I would take a look at this strange book. Within pages, I was hooked.

Another bestseller was The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. This one I am still avoiding, and don't think I will ever read. But the tag line that sells it certainly has a stand-out quality. "An autistic savant with a fear of yellow finds a dead dog and sets out to solve the killing." Other titles might include any of the Harry Potter books, or The Hunger Games.

The trouble with agents and publishers seeking High Concept manuscripts is that, in aiming to please, there is a risk every book published will become a ride of thrilling anxiety and overdone conflict. Introspection becomes lost, and description is thrown overboard as exciting incident follows incident. Some books turn out to be quite tiring to read. There was a famous book about following clues in the Louvre that had me aching for the last chapter long before it arrived.

You can find out lots more entertaining ans useful things at Nicola's blog:
http://helpineedapublisher.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=High+concept

He's a hero?

My current hero is approaching a very tricky moment in his life. Matho has escaped Arran’s imprisonment, hotfoots it to Edinburgh to rescue Phemie, and is unaware that the Queen Dowager Marie de Guise has put out an order for him to be brought before her to atone for a previous crime. The threat of losing his life would, I imagine, focus his thoughts in a way nothing else would. This led me to thinking - What Does A Hero Really Need?

Willpower, Persistence, and to be Empathetic. These are essential. He needs a goal, plus an unconscious desire, usually the antithesis of what he thinks he wants. He cannot be passive. His goal, or desire, must be realistic so the reader can believe he might succeed, and the author must give him a chance to attain his goal. He must be likeable, though perhaps not always sympathetic. Some of the most wonderful heroes can be less than sympathetic, as in Dorothy Dunnett’s Francis Crawford. Yet the reader still empathises with him and his goals.

What reveals character? The choices he makes under pressure in pursuit of his desire. Choices made when nothing is at risk don’t amount to much. Does he tell the truth when a lie would save him? If he does, then we know he’s honest. Maybe stupid, but honest.

Writing experts say that a good, complex and truthfully written character should be revealed in the story as something more than he presents to the world. Easiest example: James Bond as rich playboy, but spy extraordinaire when the chips are down.

Most stories concentrate on the hero when he is initially thwarted in something. (If everything falls at his feet, there is no conflict, and thus no story. Give him a problem, watch him struggle with it.) What if he doesn’t succeed? What are the risks? What’s at stake? The bigger the stakes, the higher the risk, the better the story.

High Stakes

You have to have something for a hero/ine to aim at. I understand that. Start with the inciting incident, preferably on page one, and go from there. Small problems get worked out and larger difficulties follow.

Some people call these high stakes stories where the hero/ine is absolutely bound to face hardship, danger, and emotional pain before s/he gets to that happy resolution. If the story is not in the romance genre, then the resolution may not be pain free, either.

We’ve all read about common themes in storytelling. For heroes, one event leads to another, and as he nears whatever it is he’s striving for, the difficulties get higher, larger, and hurt more. At the moment I’m trying to decide where my hero goes next and my musings led to thinking about the delicate art of storytelling balance.

The problem for the writer is in keeping the imagination within the bounds of what is possible. For example: Events have to be believable, and the hero must, in some weird way, like David and Goliath, be equipped to deal with the things that confront him. These days it’s not everyone’s good luck to be a whiz with a slingshot, but you take my meaning.

If the winning shot that fells Goliath also costs the hero in some way, that’s excellent from the writer’s point of view, otherwise it all seems too lucky to be credible if he got away with a wry grin, and a shrug of the shoulders. That belongs to the cartoon character. Or maybe Indiana Jones.

No, I take that back. Indie suffers physically and from his fear of snakes in almost every film, and sometimes Dad steals his girl. That's the thing about Indiana…a writer needs to know when enough is enough. Indie doesn’t; he goes on chasing the demon until he himself verges on becoming a cartoon character.

If we once ask ourselves if a man can survive all this pain, then we’re very close to the borderline of believability, where a thumping good storyline will suddenly be taken over by cartoon characters like the feminine creation in the film Salt I talked about a few posts back. And unless you are writing for movieland, then personally, I think cartoonland is a bad place to be.

Yippee! Being Human is on the way back! Next time I'll have to write about how BH gets away with being a high stakes story (hee hee) and avoids the cartoon trap.