For readers, writers, and movie-goers alike, the term high-concept is often misunderstood. When I first heard it, I assumed like many others it meant a hoity-toity highbrow arthouse film or a meandering literary novel, probably shortlisted for a thousand awards. The truth is quite the opposite.
Simply put, it means that the premise can easily be summarised in a nutshell. Think the classic elevator pitch. If a book or film premise can be easily explained and understood in one sentence, it’s likely a high concept piece. That’s it in a… nutshell!
Think of the original Alien, which is about as high-concept as it gets.
A hostile lifeform runs amok on a commercial spaceship, picking off the crew one-by-one.
Now that took me thirty seconds to write. Even if you’ve never seen Alien, you can pretty much picture the entire movie in your head, down to the moments of high tension and the inevitable climactic showdown between the last survivor and the alien antagonist, which will almost certainly involve the ship’s self-destruct button!
Hollywood LOVES high-concept. For a 90-minute mass-market blockbuster, it’s almost obligatory. Think of the 80’s action-movie heyday: Die Hard, Back to the Future, Predator and many more. Other examples include such varied movies as Groundhog Day, Jurassic Park, Memento, Limitless, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and It’s a Wonderful Life.
High-concept books include such disparate narratives as The Hunger Games, Animal Farm, No Country For Old Men, and The Martian. All these can easily be explained and understood in a few well-chosen words.
Ye there are so many wonderful books that are most definitely NOT high concept. An overwhelming majority of my favourite books aren’t. Catcher in the Rye, Blood Meridian, anything by Murakami, All Quiet on the Western Front, Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas, Pet Semetary… the list could go on and on. Sure, you can still use a one-sentence pitch (Fear & Loathing – A savage journey to the heart of the American Dream), but the premise contains too much nuance to fully understand in so few words.
Clearly, a non high-concept book or film does NOT have less artistic merit. However, high-concept DOES make a book or script easier to sell, simply because it’s easier for the agent, publisher or production company to understand the idea, and most importantly, know who the target market is and how to sell it. High-concept is also likely to have more mass-market appeal.
As a writer, should you focus on high-concept? That is a question only you can answer, but it can’t hurt your chances of success. I am currently working on a novel with a high-concept, the first time I’ve done so. Like many writers I often struggle to find the words to explain my stories, especially in-person (somehow, I can make even my best ideas sound rubbish when put on the spot).
It’s often said that writing blurbs, synopses, and elevator pitches can be harder than any other type of writing, hence why writers often employ specialists to do it for them. Increasingly, AI is being used to nutshell plots and create pitches, a task it is well suited to. Personally, I’d be ecstatic to never have to write another 500-word synopsis again in my life!