Yo! Be High Concept (in writing and life) to Build Your Story

Write Better Now

So there’s a quick and easy way to figure out who you are and who you want to be, and you can also use it to figure out what your book is and what it wants to be. 

It’s called the high concept.

Bryn Donovan defined this back in 2022 (riffing off others) as:

“A high concept story has a premise that can be clearly conveyed in one compelling sentence.”

That high concept is the dramatic question. It’s the way you describe in a quick captivating phrase all the energy inside your novel. 

You can also do this for your life: 

Like mine would be: Latchkey kid overwhelmed by family secrets sets out to find out who she is in a world that really couldn’t give a crap. 

Sorry! Sorry! That’s so negative. 

How about: Stuck in small-town New Hampshire, a weird psychic kid manages to survive thanks to her intellect until a rapist gives her a disease that attacks her brain. She survives anyways. 

Donavon gives the example from the movie Groundhog Day. “A cynical weather reporter finds himself re-living the same day again and again.”

STANDARD QUESTIONS HELP YOU FIND THE HIGH CONCEPT

There are sort of standard questions for every genre of story and movies. Will they fall in love? Will the killer be caught? Will our hero survive the zombie gerbils? Will the events of our youth make us into fractured adults? 

Don’t be shy about what your story is about.

Will ET make it home? Will the Skywalkers go to the dark side—all of them? Will the Avengers defeat Thanos? Will Hugh Grant’s character in whatever movie fall in love with someone in a fulfilling way?

Even ghost ‘reality’ shows on tv have a dramatic question.

Will they catch evidence—real evidence of the ghosts? Will they get possessed? Will they survive the night in the haunted castle? 

An awesome dramatic question isn’t enough to make something a bestseller, but it’s an important start. Go get one. For your life and your story. 

THE NEXT STEP AFTER THE CONCEPT

Next add in the obstacles. What’s making it complicated for ET to get home? For the ghost hunters to find evidence? Add those obstacles up so that we doubt that dramatic question is going to have a good answer. 

THEN MAKE SURE WE ARE INTO THE CHARACTER

Finally, make sure that your hero is someone with some damn strong convictions. ET knows he has to get home, right? Scarlett O’Hara is positive she has to marry that Ashley guy. Harry Potter/Iron Man/Captain America/Black Widow must defeat Voldemort/Thanos/Whatever Big Bad you want to insert. 

That character’s super strong convictions are what makes us root for them. We feel that conviction. The stakes resonate. 

That’s the most important part of all really: make it resonate