Honestly, this is the first pitch in these comments that actually interested me to hear more. Getting the “twist” of a story right is much harder than people assume, and they wrench the plot with their bare hands and insert cyborg zombies and samurai and whatever they can to make their twist SEEM interesting, but without actually piquing any interest. This one makes me ask questions, like “how is beyond the grave handled?” Or “what will her storytelling look like?” I’m reminded of Ambrose Bierce’s “The Moonlit Road,” where a woman’s murder is talked about between three different perspectives, including the murdered woman’s own perspective. She lives in a moonlit world and her interactions with her son and husband only cause them grief and horror, but she can’t understand why. She’s dead, but she still misses them.
@@TheLyricalCleric Thank you so much for the wonderfully thought through comment, and for the potential comp title! I've had this idea for a few years now, and have slowly been building out the characters and plot while I write other, less serious stuff to practice my prose. It means a lot to me that this sounded interesting to you!
You are a treasure to be found by writers who understand that it takes hard work, to write a good novel. But having your advice, expertise and encouragement is a Godsend!
I had no idea what high concept was before today, but apparently my novel is high concept? After it's revisions, I'm marketing it as X-Men meets The Hidden Legacy, tackling themes of intolerance toward witches and warlocks, while said witches and warlocks are foretold to save humanity from a Demon Apocalypse. Also, thanks again for an informative video about the industry, Alyssa. When I think I know everything, I still end up learning something new.
You know, not much has been done with angels that I have seen... certainly not like vampires and demons. Sounds like a possibility if it is done right.
I'm reading through "How to Write A Damn Good Thriller" By James N. Frey and he just talked about this very thing. He also kind of touched on it in "How to Write A Damn Good Mystery" too. But thrillers are a bit broader in scope. So it applies more there.
Oh, seems like you're working on a novel too, how's that coming up? I can see that her video helps a lot. Is that your first book? And, are you an indie author too?
So this is where I'm at for my story "Crossfire" - A hardboiled but flunking lady cop, with the help of a street samurai, seeks to bring her mentor's killer to justice, uncovering an entire network of corruption all the way to the highest offices in the city. It's meant to be a gritty cyberpunk mystery and/or thriller, with a buddylove thread running through it. Cop and criminal working together, but also kind of against each other. Themes that come up for it are about justice vs revenge, loyalty, honor, trust. I had the idea last year and it's just never gone away. So now I'm working on the pre-writing. I really hope I can get what I want out of it, and make something people really want to read, or find compelling.
I hope you don't mind me saying, ... I think it needs something else. Keep working on the "What if..." possibilities. Your mix of genres is interesting.
Thanks for your helpful videos! I am currently finishing my 2nd self published novel, about Ancient Rome. I’m now rereading & editing the manuscript as my graphic designer finishes the covers. Your videos always give insightful info about the publishing industry.
Hmm. That Alyssa's idea was great. It helps me, too. Seems like you're also working on a novel at the moment. How's that coming up? Is it your first and are you an indie author also?
What if someone died but woke up in a stranger’s body immediately after? I’ve got a few novels I’ve started and stopped over the past year. This video helped me realize why this idea has stood out the most to me among them all. I think it’s the most high concept pitch among my current projects. Maybe that’s the book I really need to work hard on finishing right now. Glad the YT algorithm sent me here!
Sure, I'll sub. This is the first vid I'm seeing from you and I feel like I learned something. I'm hoping I've got something at least APPROACHING high concept...I hope.
For my book Omniscient, I don’t know whether I should make it: “Amidst a dystopian society, a girl must escape a government experiment, both in the real world and the realm beyond dreams.” or “Sharkboy and Lavagirl if it was a teen dystopian fantasy.” Or neither? I am going to be querying next week and some agents ask me to summarize it in one sentence.
Great advice as always. My go at a concept - 'Where did Count Dracula come from?' - I have already written around 50% of it and it has turned into 3 books.
Last Flight of Pegasus is a high concept novel. By accident, six professionals find Noah’s Ark, were a creature that failed to disembark, collects five of them for future meals, but the one that escaped its hell remained in a torment for days to come.
This makes sense. I have always wonder what makes it high concept. Thanks for explaining. My high concept pitch: SHOW ME A SIGN X THE LOST YEAR. After the death of her caregiver, a deaf Ukrainian immigrant finds herself alone in America, where her survival depends on finding her last surviving relative - her father.
My High Concept Pitch: In the mists of humanity’s collapse, Filio, a social service robot has to choose between reuniting with his father figure or to choose his new found family.
I feel like the "highest" concept narratives, worlds, stakes, characters ect. Are essentially found in anime/manga at this point. "an infinite tower that people climb to grant wishes at the top, but who all forget what they wished for before they get there..." or "a group of genius kids learn their orphanage is a human farm for world ruling demons, and try to escape and survive in an Alice in Wonderland-like setting". But the best of them essentially can become too "complex" to be defined by their high concept setting anymore. They become something a person can't even describe in words altogether. Often its a "feeling" they carry or "theme" they explore that overrides the meaning of their narrarive. ... I do think they can be inspirational. Especially on the complexity department.
Anime has the advantage of a huge reservoir of source material; studios can select the best-selling manga, most popular doujinshi or fanfiction, or even a spec script custom built for their staff.
Messing with structure takes a good bit of familiarity with the technical bits of writing. You have to be pretty good with the rules in order to bend them effectively. Be careful!
Great video! I didn't realize that most of my story ideas are developed through this "high concept" method, which is really cool! Two books I'm working on could be described as "the Handmaid's Tale meets the Walking Dead" and "if Stephen King wrote Twilight."
Thank you so much, Alyssa! My High Concept Pitch: Three generations of Eastern-Europen women living through communism and how their lives change when the Berlin Wall falls and their corner of the world finally joins democracy and capitalism. Would that type of a historical fiction be of interest to anyone in the USA to read?
What if getting your dream job meant surviving excruciating torture while preventing someone you love from getting killed? What if this journey allowed you to discover you had powers you didn’t know you had? What if your initial goal to support your family shattered when you realized you need to save the whole city? That’s my WIP.
That might actually work, but it needs another element to set it off. A fallen empire? Ancient discoveries? An alien invasion, or maybe it's a human invasion? Or maybe a simple old "destroy the one thing the bad guys are after" quest? Maybe in an Avatar-like twist, your main character is a billionaire who turns coat? Or, maybe it's the countries who are the baddies and the billionaires are actually trying to save humanity with a new technology (and it's actually an old technology that the countries have either lost or given up in favour of a destructive ideology --- like giving up farming in favour of socialism.) I hope you don't mind me just brainstorming for you???
More brainstorming ideas: maybe the planets resources are depleted severely and so the search is out of necessity. Or planet is about to explode/stop spinning for some reason. Maybe aliens interfere which speeds up or slows down the process.
I was watching Gilda (the movie from 1946) and asked myself, what if we saw film noir movies from the point of view of the femme fatale instead of the tortured man who always tells the story? I wrote the book and now I'm soon to be on submission.
I didn't know my little vampire romance was High Concept. I just wanted to write a happy ending for a simple Dracula/Barnabas Collins type story without all the convoluted plots the majority of vampire romances have. The endings of Bram Stoker's Dracula, House of Dark Shadows and other such movies where the poor vampire gets killed depress me. I am tired of 'vegetarian' vampires, and want him to actually be a danger. "A 500 year old vampire finds the reincarnation of his lost love and sets out to seduce and turn her." The idea of him loving her too much to use her for a meal, and having to struggle against his primal instinct to kill is so tantalizing.
The crazy thing about asking "What ifs..." is that's literally 100% of Kings success lol. That's all the man does while wrapping in blue collar work characters and dialogue.
My problem is that my series have high concept premises … but I’m an epic fantasy nerd so I want the whole buildup so it actually means something and end up having a non-high premise first book 😅 but you can’t sell the first book on the series premise 😢 For instance, I have a forbidden romance series, but it doesn’t hurt unless the ‘forbidden’ part is established first.
I attempted dropping Medieval Britain (knights, royalty, stuck-up nobles, etc) into a sci-fi world. Toss in a bit of the old college try (first 1\4 to 1\3) of the book and "aliens".
Mixing and matching familiar tropes and dressing it up as “high concept” is why there are so many disposable flavor-of-the-month books out there these days. I remember one writer telling me that her publisher requested a “vampire chef romance” at the height of the vampire craze years ago. Does anyone remember it? Garbage ideas make for garbage fiction.
Pardon me, but I hope you don't mind me asking: Is she a guide? From another world? Showing your hero the way to his destiny? You'll need more, I think.
@@adamhenrysears3288 I don't mind you asking at all. And I agree. I'm still working on it. The broad strokes are there though... She's not a guide, just a girl living on the frontier of two warring kingdoms. He's been injured, and he'd be traveling through enemy territory, but to her, it's just the same forest, just different branding. Now, I just need to condence that to a single pithy sentence. :)
@@michaelburke4048 I think you need at least one more broad stroke to get to high concept. How about actual apocalyptic zombies? Or the "Captain America" actually being a superhero who crash landed, but he never reveals his identity (since that could be infringement)? Or the two kingdoms are at war because they are Russia and Ukraine, or Israel and Palestine? Or you could take a page from Kass Morgan's The 100, and one of those kingdoms has just returned, or maybe the superhero was thrust forward into the future after an apocalypse. Just brain-farting here. I don't know if my own can be considered high concept, but I think it has enough originality to it to at least earn its keep.
In this sci-fi crime procedural, a defense attorney for an extraterrestrial species-colloquially referred to as "The Greys"-has to advocate for three clients guilty of unauthorized and excessively grisly human mutilations.
"A man spends two years looking for his girlfriend's killer, before coming to the shocking realisation he's gonna have to do it himself... and zombies..."
Currently working on: In a world where advanced technology has blurred the lines between human and machine, a man from Earth's past must unravel the secrets of an ancient AI and confront a twisted enemy to save a planet on the brink of destruction, all while grappling with his own grief and the question of what it truly means to be human.
Brotherhood of the Stranded: (The Last of Us meets Leave the World Behind.) The lights go out, electric cars stop working, the military is defunct, and a young man crosses an America filled with three hundred million starving people to reunite with his younger brother.
I'm writing a Django meets Now You See Me meets social commentary, Can four immigrants into the US shift the whole nation away from racism during the reconstruction era? It's revenge goes system shock. Is it possible individuals pull something like that off?
How does a utopian society that exists in intergalactic space(their star system and home planet are rogues in the vast, empty expanse of space between galaxies) deal with the knowledge that their planet is doomed by an eminent supernova? When you're that far from other stars and planets, where could you even go? The idea came to me while listening to the Audiobook of Neil Degrasse Tyson's brief novel "Astrophysics for People in a Hurry."
For now, I think my story is Percy Jackson meets Wheel of Time in a coming-of-age homage to classic fantasy, but with a modernized tone and intricate lore.
Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment lives with Newman in Jerry Seinfeld's apartment building. Jerry's uncle, the shoplifter, is mysteriously murdered. Kramer comes through the door at an inopportune time.
"An accidental bond between a magical society diplomat and a tormented drifter unearths dangerous truths about their precariously allied nations... and secrets about themselves."
im getting drafted into the idf soon, and were on the brink of just duking it out with iran and of theyre proxies... so obviously i started writing a book about a tank crew that gets stuck behind enemy lines in lebanon😂! im just in the second chapter but i planned my plot out and i'm thinking of the book having a bunch of nice survival chapters just rucking through lebanon, mixed with some action like in encounters with hasbulla patrols for example.. the main character is the tank commander and i know its kinda basic.. but im thinking of having him develop in terms of leadership etc and have him go from not realy getting his crew members, to being realy close to them etc.. i have plans to add some major things into the plot but i want to get a little further in before i do. putting my writing skills aside (i think im a solid writer but that's up to the respective publisher to decide) i think the book idea is very relevant, and i belive it would do great in an israeli bookstore. but im not sure about how that would look in an american bookstore.. anyway, do you have any experience with authors from other countries trying to get their book published by an american publisher? (i do have a us citizenship if that helps..?) in my place, would you consider doing that or should i just get some israeli publisher? EDIT* anyway thanks for all the writing advice its very helpful and ill try to implement as much of it as i can!
A Queen steals the divinity of a God out of revenge, but destroys her planet to do so. Now she struggles with what to do with it, and if she is fit to take the gods place.
Hi, Alyssa; I don't know if you read the comments. (I hope you read mine.) Can you please do a video on book signings? How do we do one? Do we email the bookstore and ask them? How do we make it interesting, and do we ask our publisher for extra things like bookmarks or free treats? Please make a video on this. Also, do you have any friends who are agents in non-fiction? Plz make some videos on non-fiction too. :) Have a good weekend !
I have two high concepts, which is better? When a cop uncovers his father’s secret role in a nefarious company, he must forge an uneasy alliance with a notorious syndicate member, risking his career and confronting his own principles to unravel the corporation’s dark scheme and bring justice to light. Two men are forced to confront the dark legacies of their families and the shadowy company that binds them. As their paths diverge, they must decide between loyalty and justice, risking everything for the truth.
I think these are good starts. But to me these are more like broad plot summaries. To make the pitch, I’d hone in on the concepts that would make your book stand out. For example option one: “If you found out your own father was a criminal, would you turn him in?” Maybe this isn’t what you’re going for, but that seems like the concept here. Nail it down to one tight sentence - the absolute core of the idea - and I think option one is leaning toward a good high concept pitch.
Southern gothic horror novel based on a true story set in the early 1980s about a 12 year old girl assaulted by a stranger and blackmailed by a 14 year old psychopath, her revenge - and it's aftermath,
This was an excellent video. Thanks so much. Do you have any special advices for writers of pre-young adult novels? I'm writing a character driven fantasy novel for the age-group (11?)12-15. I have so many questions about writing for this age group, but find it difficult to formulate them all as I'm not fluent in english. I have worked many years with children so I know how to speak with them and (more or less) how their brains work. This is however my first novel so I struggle to get it right. I've spent almost as much time on reading about writing and watching videos on the subject as actually writing, lol. Most advice I've seen is about writing for adults.
My WIP as high concept: "A school bully messes with the wrong kid, but that kid is trying to learn how to solve his problems without beating them up.""
Just my opinion, but I think you might need to be more specific about the kid. 'A dinosaur theme park island goes wrong' is the kind of thing we need to pique interest, I think.
the story im writing is this: a teenager who desperately wants to be normal finds out he has a superpower and now has to fight for his life while covering up his past. its honestly weird how simple it is lol. especially considering the story is a big mess, like, a whirlwind of emotions.
What if a young girl with a healing gift finds out she is the daughter of the God of Death. Percy Jackson inspired, but I created my own world with my own pantheon of gods and deities.
A word of warning, not all high concept stories can have their high concept content presented in a pitch or advert. For instance, you can absolute pitch - “Vampires go to Alaska for 30 days of night.” However, you can NOT pitch, “A boy who sees dead people gets counseling from a child therapist who’s died and doesn’t know he’s dead.” So…just know that. A high concept piece STILL (despite her claim) needs a competent story (writing) penned by a competent author in a lot of cases. 30 Days of Night is an incredibly mid comic book that resulted in a mediocre film. But that didn’t stop it from selling an insane amount of copies, spin offs and the film turning a profit. So….a high concept is usually enough. But if you can’t pitch the high concept to the public on its own, then execution matters that much more.
Mortal Tether: Teenagers inherit the earth after an alien virus twists all adults over age 20 into immortal monsters. Lord of the Flies meets Stranger Things.
ma'am please make a video on- how to change the pov from one to another when I wanna switch and add new story of the running protagonist from the first pov. for example- I am writing a couple story but the story belong to the boy pov and they spent the time together and after the half of the story I wanna switch to girl pov with revealing her secrets with the day spend with him. how I can write that. And is it ok, If I am adding new pov after half of the story? please reply.
Go and read Trust by Hernan Diaz. He did multiple POVs, more like a book within a book within a book, and pulling the pieces perfectly together at the end. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 2022 with Trust, and I have a feeling that the structure of the book contributed to the prize.
Goblin Princess is the story of a homeless orphan girl who has to stop a goblin uprising to save the goblins. The big battle scene happens in the third book, Warrior Princess, where she leads the goblins to war to save the kingdom. Dark Lady is the story of a lone swordsman who confronts a dark sorceress and finds that she's his long lost sister. That one has wizards, demons and a corrupt politician.
Every story is an X meets Y story, even if it's not as blatant as the examples presented here. The X is the type of story everyone is familiar with. The Y is your spin on it.
@@xChikyx agreed, but with tens of thousands of books/movies that come out every year, you have to do something to cut through the noise. For most people, "It's a really good book" just isn't enough of a selling point.
No one writes better than me. Allow me to prove it with a poem. Be inspired. Battle The Beast The night came quicker than usual, as it caught me by surprise Before I found some shelter, the darkness dimmed my eyes My panicked heart was racing, my legs instinctively took flight I aimlessly ran in circles, in the horror of blackest night In the distance I could hear it, the sound of a terrible beast I could hear its claws scratching, I could see the flash of its teeth There was no way to outrun it, for it traveled on all fours So, faced with just one prospect, I turned and faced the noise The blade I held, had a faint sparkle illumined by distant stars The beast knew I would use it, as it stalked me from afar My wait drug on for an eternity, as I firmly stood my ground But soon it would be over, for I heard approaching sounds Throughout my life, I purposely planned, to never travel at night It was the only way to miss the beast and avoid a deadly fight Yet, life has a sense of justice, not willing to let me cheat those plans From facing the beast who stalks me, from facing what haunts a man A silhouette sprang out of the blackness, striking hard the first blow I vollied back with the tip of my blade, causing the beast to moan Collapsing together, mortally wounded, the dawn began to break I saw the beast that had attacked me, it was myself, in whom I faced Battle The Beast By William Cooper From the book, Coop's Corner Collection Inspirational Stories and Poems Check out the first poem, (Lisa Moo Moo Marie) turned into a country song.
![Megan Thee Stallion - Neva Play (feat. RM) [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/TpYTyAaTRts/mqdefault.jpg)
'summarized succinctly in a single sentence'
Nice.
Tis better to alliterate than to be illiterate!
I'm waiting on the Alyssa Matesic Skin Care PDF
For real she's glowing
Animal tail like eyebrow game is runway model tight too.
You request was summarized succinctly in a single sentence.
Drink plenty of water 💦
Eat your greens 🥬
Get plenty of sleep 😴
Done ✅👌🏼😊
Very much in idea phase, but my concept is: A mother has to save her son from beyond the grave.
Honestly, this is the first pitch in these comments that actually interested me to hear more. Getting the “twist” of a story right is much harder than people assume, and they wrench the plot with their bare hands and insert cyborg zombies and samurai and whatever they can to make their twist SEEM interesting, but without actually piquing any interest. This one makes me ask questions, like “how is beyond the grave handled?” Or “what will her storytelling look like?” I’m reminded of Ambrose Bierce’s “The Moonlit Road,” where a woman’s murder is talked about between three different perspectives, including the murdered woman’s own perspective. She lives in a moonlit world and her interactions with her son and husband only cause them grief and horror, but she can’t understand why. She’s dead, but she still misses them.
@@TheLyricalCleric Thank you so much for the wonderfully thought through comment, and for the potential comp title! I've had this idea for a few years now, and have slowly been building out the characters and plot while I write other, less serious stuff to practice my prose. It means a lot to me that this sounded interesting to you!
All Mirrors Have Shades
A teen’s memory gaps is linked to a missing person, an experimental drug, and a woman’s son.
After watching this I realized what the high concept pitch for my WIP is and included it in my cover letter.
You are a treasure to be found by writers who understand that it takes hard work, to write a good novel. But having your advice, expertise and encouragement is a Godsend!
I had no idea what high concept was before today, but apparently my novel is high concept? After it's revisions, I'm marketing it as X-Men meets The Hidden Legacy, tackling themes of intolerance toward witches and warlocks, while said witches and warlocks are foretold to save humanity from a Demon Apocalypse.
Also, thanks again for an informative video about the industry, Alyssa. When I think I know everything, I still end up learning something new.
Oooo, that sounds like that'll be good. Wishing you all the success!
@@tearstoneactual9773 thanks
I've been practicing this elevator pitch for a while: "It's a buddy cop story with an angel and a demon."
You know, not much has been done with angels that I have seen... certainly not like vampires and demons. Sounds like a possibility if it is done right.
Like in Good Omens?
@@RoxanaLine Or like anything else by Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman
@@RoxanaLine Heh. I knew that comparison was inevitable. :)
So, good cop bad cop?
My WIP is "All the President's Men" meets "The Hunt for Red October"
I've been touching on Hunt for the Red October a lot in some of my stuff lately. So glad Tom Clancy put that together.
I'm reading through "How to Write A Damn Good Thriller" By James N. Frey and he just talked about this very thing. He also kind of touched on it in "How to Write A Damn Good Mystery" too. But thrillers are a bit broader in scope. So it applies more there.
Super. You have just given me what I need to do great work. Thanks.
Oh, seems like you're working on a novel too, how's that coming up? I can see that her video helps a lot. Is that your first book? And, are you an indie author too?
My last book was "Stranger Things with Cats" and the one before that was "What if fortune cookies always come true?"
Love your new bookcase backdrop! More importantly, of course, great video.!
So this is where I'm at for my story "Crossfire" - A hardboiled but flunking lady cop, with the help of a street samurai, seeks to bring her mentor's killer to justice, uncovering an entire network of corruption all the way to the highest offices in the city.
It's meant to be a gritty cyberpunk mystery and/or thriller, with a buddylove thread running through it. Cop and criminal working together, but also kind of against each other.
Themes that come up for it are about justice vs revenge, loyalty, honor, trust. I had the idea last year and it's just never gone away. So now I'm working on the pre-writing. I really hope I can get what I want out of it, and make something people really want to read, or find compelling.
I hope you don't mind me saying, ... I think it needs something else. Keep working on the "What if..." possibilities. Your mix of genres is interesting.
Thanks for your helpful videos!
I am currently finishing my 2nd self published novel, about Ancient Rome. I’m now rereading & editing the manuscript as my graphic designer finishes the covers. Your videos always give insightful info about the publishing industry.
What a wonderful exercise to do to strengthen the idea of my novella. Thanks a lot Alyssa 😄
Hmm. That Alyssa's idea was great. It helps me, too. Seems like you're also working on a novel at the moment. How's that coming up? Is it your first and are you an indie author also?
What if someone died but woke up in a stranger’s body immediately after?
I’ve got a few novels I’ve started and stopped over the past year. This video helped me realize why this idea has stood out the most to me among them all. I think it’s the most high concept pitch among my current projects. Maybe that’s the book I really need to work hard on finishing right now.
Glad the YT algorithm sent me here!
Kate Morton was looking for a way to tell her first story, and created a whole new kind of historical mystery fiction.
Sure, I'll sub. This is the first vid I'm seeing from you and I feel like I learned something. I'm hoping I've got something at least APPROACHING high concept...I hope.
Very interesting. Turns out my book is high concept af 😂 on my second round of revisions with about 119K words after draft 2. Great video as always 👍
For my book Omniscient, I don’t know whether I should make it:
“Amidst a dystopian society, a girl must escape a government experiment, both in the real world and the realm beyond dreams.”
or
“Sharkboy and Lavagirl if it was a teen dystopian fantasy.”
Or neither? I am going to be querying next week and some agents ask me to summarize it in one sentence.
Great advice as always. My go at a concept - 'Where did Count Dracula come from?' - I have already written around 50% of it and it has turned into 3 books.
Last Flight of Pegasus is a high concept novel. By accident, six professionals find Noah’s Ark, were a creature that failed to disembark, collects five of them for future meals, but the one that escaped its hell remained in a torment for days to come.
This makes sense. I have always wonder what makes it high concept. Thanks for explaining.
My high concept pitch:
SHOW ME A SIGN X THE LOST YEAR.
After the death of her caregiver, a deaf Ukrainian immigrant finds herself alone in America, where her survival depends on finding her last surviving relative - her father.
Great pitch!
@@AlyssaMatesicthank you.
Very good and useful tips. Thanks alot! ✌️
My High Concept Pitch:
In the mists of humanity’s collapse, Filio, a social service robot has to choose between reuniting with his father figure or to choose his new found family.
Sounds like a murder-bot story gone haywire.🙃
@@robertcoyle1532 how so??
@@robertcoyle1532 how so??
You mean like "The Wild Robot?"
@@adamhenrysears3288 It has the similarities of being a story about robots in nature with animals, but thats where the similarities end
I feel like the "highest" concept narratives, worlds, stakes, characters ect. Are essentially found in anime/manga at this point. "an infinite tower that people climb to grant wishes at the top, but who all forget what they wished for before they get there..." or "a group of genius kids learn their orphanage is a human farm for world ruling demons, and try to escape and survive in an Alice in Wonderland-like setting".
But the best of them essentially can become too "complex" to be defined by their high concept setting anymore. They become something a person can't even describe in words altogether. Often its a "feeling" they carry or "theme" they explore that overrides the meaning of their narrarive.
... I do think they can be inspirational. Especially on the complexity department.
What anime is the wish-granting tower from?
@@gabrielnoel5569 Tower of God.
Anime has the advantage of a huge reservoir of source material; studios can select the best-selling manga, most popular doujinshi or fanfiction, or even a spec script custom built for their staff.
Messing with structure takes a good bit of familiarity with the technical bits of writing. You have to be pretty good with the rules in order to bend them effectively. Be careful!
Great video! I didn't realize that most of my story ideas are developed through this "high concept" method, which is really cool! Two books I'm working on could be described as "the Handmaid's Tale meets the Walking Dead" and "if Stephen King wrote Twilight."
Thank you so much, Alyssa! My High Concept Pitch:
Three generations of Eastern-Europen women living through communism and how their lives change when the Berlin Wall falls and their corner of the world finally joins democracy and capitalism.
Would that type of a historical fiction be of interest to anyone in the USA to read?
Thank you for this valuable information + for your generosity on this channel offering your expertise and insight. It’s so helpful.
I’m so glad you find my channel helpful - thanks for the kind comment!
Alyssa, unlike other girls, I love how you get into the content instead of rambling on and on for 12 of the 15 minutes.
Pslayer
A thriller in which a serial killer targets psychics, and the only person who can stop him is a children's book author and illustrator.
2:54 - what crazy science fiction! That could never happen!
You're talking about countries like Iran, yes?
What if getting your dream job meant surviving excruciating torture while preventing someone you love from getting killed? What if this journey allowed you to discover you had powers you didn’t know you had? What if your initial goal to support your family shattered when you realized you need to save the whole city? That’s my WIP.
Thank you!
I agree. The Hunger games is the best idea ever
Space Rush: The classic western Land Rush set in space where billionaires compete with countries to claim resources, trade, and power.
That might actually work, but it needs another element to set it off. A fallen empire? Ancient discoveries? An alien invasion, or maybe it's a human invasion? Or maybe a simple old "destroy the one thing the bad guys are after" quest? Maybe in an Avatar-like twist, your main character is a billionaire who turns coat? Or, maybe it's the countries who are the baddies and the billionaires are actually trying to save humanity with a new technology (and it's actually an old technology that the countries have either lost or given up in favour of a destructive ideology --- like giving up farming in favour of socialism.) I hope you don't mind me just brainstorming for you???
@@adamhenrysears3288 Not at all. Thank you for the suggestions.
More brainstorming ideas: maybe the planets resources are depleted severely and so the search is out of necessity. Or planet is about to explode/stop spinning for some reason. Maybe aliens interfere which speeds up or slows down the process.
I was watching Gilda (the movie from 1946) and asked myself, what if we saw film noir movies from the point of view of the femme fatale instead of the tortured man who always tells the story? I wrote the book and now I'm soon to be on submission.
Such an intriguing premise! Congratulations and best of luck with going on submission!
@@AlyssaMatesic thank you!
I didn't know my little vampire romance was High Concept. I just wanted to write a happy ending for a simple Dracula/Barnabas Collins type story without all the convoluted plots the majority of vampire romances have. The endings of Bram Stoker's Dracula, House of Dark Shadows and other such movies where the poor vampire gets killed depress me. I am tired of 'vegetarian' vampires, and want him to actually be a danger.
"A 500 year old vampire finds the reincarnation of his lost love and sets out to seduce and turn her." The idea of him loving her too much to use her for a meal, and having to struggle against his primal instinct to kill is so tantalizing.
The crazy thing about asking "What ifs..." is that's literally 100% of Kings success lol. That's all the man does while wrapping in blue collar work characters and dialogue.
Yep exactly!
My problem is that my series have high concept premises … but I’m an epic fantasy nerd so I want the whole buildup so it actually means something and end up having a non-high premise first book 😅 but you can’t sell the first book on the series premise 😢 For instance, I have a forbidden romance series, but it doesn’t hurt unless the ‘forbidden’ part is established first.
I attempted dropping Medieval Britain (knights, royalty, stuck-up nobles, etc) into a sci-fi world. Toss in a bit of the old college try (first 1\4 to 1\3) of the book and "aliens".
Mixing and matching familiar tropes and dressing it up as “high concept” is why there are so many disposable flavor-of-the-month books out there these days. I remember one writer telling me that her publisher requested a “vampire chef romance” at the height of the vampire craze years ago. Does anyone remember it? Garbage ideas make for garbage fiction.
My High Concept Pitch:
Ellie from The Last of Us guides a Captain America type on his quest through a world like Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself.
Pardon me, but I hope you don't mind me asking: Is she a guide? From another world? Showing your hero the way to his destiny? You'll need more, I think.
@@adamhenrysears3288 I don't mind you asking at all. And I agree. I'm still working on it. The broad strokes are there though...
She's not a guide, just a girl living on the frontier of two warring kingdoms. He's been injured, and he'd be traveling through enemy territory, but to her, it's just the same forest, just different branding.
Now, I just need to condence that to a single pithy sentence. :)
@@michaelburke4048 I think you need at least one more broad stroke to get to high concept. How about actual apocalyptic zombies? Or the "Captain America" actually being a superhero who crash landed, but he never reveals his identity (since that could be infringement)? Or the two kingdoms are at war because they are Russia and Ukraine, or Israel and Palestine? Or you could take a page from Kass Morgan's The 100, and one of those kingdoms has just returned, or maybe the superhero was thrust forward into the future after an apocalypse. Just brain-farting here.
I don't know if my own can be considered high concept, but I think it has enough originality to it to at least earn its keep.
In this sci-fi crime procedural, a defense attorney for an extraterrestrial species-colloquially referred to as "The Greys"-has to advocate for three clients guilty of unauthorized and excessively grisly human mutilations.
Great concept! I would delete this comment before someone comes along and steals it.
"A man spends two years looking for his girlfriend's killer, before coming to the shocking realisation he's gonna have to do it himself... and zombies..."
Never seen such a plot twist in a single sentence
AND ZOMBIES !!!
Eh
The Vanishing Dead.
*ZOMBIE PINOCCHIO ON THE TITANIC*
(I thought of zombie Pride & Prejudice just before you said it)
Now that’s catchy! I’d read that 😊
My story is basically the Wizard of Oz meets Hunger Games, taking the portal fantasy aspect and making it sci-fi.
Love it!
That’s so cool! Best of luck with it 😊
Currently working on:
In a world where advanced technology has blurred the lines between human and machine, a man from Earth's past must unravel the secrets of an ancient AI and confront a twisted enemy to save a planet on the brink of destruction, all while grappling with his own grief and the question of what it truly means to be human.
I always wanted to play with the idea of Downton Abby/Justice league story.
My book is basically "what if Damian Desmond was in pirates of the Caribbean but make it fantasy" ...lol
Brotherhood of the Stranded:
(The Last of Us meets Leave the World Behind.)
The lights go out, electric cars stop working, the military is defunct, and a young man crosses an America filled with three hundred million starving people to reunite with his younger brother.
I'm writing a Django meets Now You See Me meets social commentary,
Can four immigrants into the US shift the whole nation away from racism during the reconstruction era?
It's revenge goes system shock. Is it possible individuals pull something like that off?
Hi,
Could you please make a video about marketing strategies especially for us who live in South Africa
Such an excellent teacher!
You’ve just helped me nail my pitch, thank you 🤩
Pitch: The hunger games meets beauty and the beast
Thank you so much!
Although I write fantasy, I do add some concepts that are relevant or do ask the "what if?" question.
Thank you
How does a utopian society that exists in intergalactic space(their star system and home planet are rogues in the vast, empty expanse of space between galaxies) deal with the knowledge that their planet is doomed by an eminent supernova? When you're that far from other stars and planets, where could you even go?
The idea came to me while listening to the Audiobook of Neil Degrasse Tyson's brief novel "Astrophysics for People in a Hurry."
That's a great content Alyssa ❤🎉
Cinderella meets LOTR
That grabbed my attention. I want to read that!
For now, I think my story is Percy Jackson meets Wheel of Time in a coming-of-age homage to classic fantasy, but with a modernized tone and intricate lore.
My current WIP is Pirates of the Carribean meets Tangled.
That sounds like such a fun story - great pitch!
Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment lives with Newman in Jerry Seinfeld's apartment building. Jerry's uncle, the shoplifter, is mysteriously murdered. Kramer comes through the door at an inopportune time.
"An accidental bond between a magical society diplomat and a tormented drifter unearths dangerous truths about their precariously allied nations... and secrets about themselves."
Great video a lot of info, You had a great voice, but the vocal fry doesn't let it shine. *Let it shine!!!*
im getting drafted into the idf soon, and were on the brink of just duking it out with iran and of theyre proxies...
so obviously i started writing a book about a tank crew that gets stuck behind enemy lines in lebanon😂! im just in the second chapter but i planned my plot out and i'm thinking of the book having a bunch of nice survival chapters just rucking through lebanon, mixed with some action like in encounters with hasbulla patrols for example.. the main character is the tank commander and i know its kinda basic.. but im thinking of having him develop in terms of leadership etc and have him go from not realy getting his crew members, to being realy close to them etc..
i have plans to add some major things into the plot but i want to get a little further in before i do.
putting my writing skills aside (i think im a solid writer but that's up to the respective publisher to decide)
i think the book idea is very relevant, and i belive it would do great in an israeli bookstore. but im not sure about how that would look in an american bookstore.. anyway, do you have any experience with authors from other countries trying to get their book published by an american publisher? (i do have a us citizenship if that helps..?)
in my place, would you consider doing that or should i just get some israeli publisher?
EDIT*
anyway thanks for all the writing advice its very helpful and ill try to implement as much of it as i can!
Does high concept apply to non-fiction?
A Queen steals the divinity of a God out of revenge, but destroys her planet to do so. Now she struggles with what to do with it, and if she is fit to take the gods place.
Hi, Alyssa; I don't know if you read the comments. (I hope you read mine.) Can you please do a video on book signings? How do we do one? Do we email the bookstore and ask them? How do we make it interesting, and do we ask our publisher for extra things like bookmarks or free treats? Please make a video on this.
Also, do you have any friends who are agents in non-fiction? Plz make some videos on non-fiction too. :)
Have a good weekend !
Great video. Like’d and sub’d.
Thanks so much for the sub!
I have two high concepts, which is better?
When a cop uncovers his father’s secret role in a nefarious company, he must forge an uneasy alliance with a notorious syndicate member, risking his career and confronting his own principles to unravel the corporation’s dark scheme and bring justice to light.
Two men are forced to confront the dark legacies of their families and the shadowy company that binds them. As their paths diverge, they must decide between loyalty and justice, risking everything for the truth.
I think these are good starts. But to me these are more like broad plot summaries. To make the pitch, I’d hone in on the concepts that would make your book stand out. For example option one: “If you found out your own father was a criminal, would you turn him in?” Maybe this isn’t what you’re going for, but that seems like the concept here. Nail it down to one tight sentence - the absolute core of the idea - and I think option one is leaning toward a good high concept pitch.
Please make video on narrative structure
Southern gothic horror novel based on a true story set in the early 1980s about a 12 year old girl assaulted by a stranger and blackmailed by a 14 year old psychopath, her revenge - and it's aftermath,
Would proust fit for a high concept premise nowadays? ...
This was an excellent video. Thanks so much. Do you have any special advices for writers of pre-young adult novels? I'm writing a character driven fantasy novel for the age-group (11?)12-15. I have so many questions about writing for this age group, but find it difficult to formulate them all as I'm not fluent in english. I have worked many years with children so I know how to speak with them and (more or less) how their brains work. This is however my first novel so I struggle to get it right. I've spent almost as much time on reading about writing and watching videos on the subject as actually writing, lol. Most advice I've seen is about writing for adults.
My WIP as high concept: "A school bully messes with the wrong kid, but that kid is trying to learn how to solve his problems without beating them up.""
Just my opinion, but I think you might need to be more specific about the kid. 'A dinosaur theme park island goes wrong' is the kind of thing we need to pique interest, I think.
Would Creative Nonfiction or Memoir also need to have a high concept? Or does this just apply to fiction?
As a designer and author's PA, I was impressed you did. Kudos to your great work.
the story im writing is this: a teenager who desperately wants to be normal finds out he has a superpower and now has to fight for his life while covering up his past.
its honestly weird how simple it is lol. especially considering the story is a big mess, like, a whirlwind of emotions.
I wonder if Myth genre is by default under high concept.
What if a young girl with a healing gift finds out she is the daughter of the God of Death. Percy Jackson inspired, but I created my own world with my own pantheon of gods and deities.
A word of warning, not all high concept stories can have their high concept content presented in a pitch or advert.
For instance, you can absolute pitch - “Vampires go to Alaska for 30 days of night.”
However, you can NOT pitch, “A boy who sees dead people gets counseling from a child therapist who’s died and doesn’t know he’s dead.”
So…just know that. A high concept piece STILL (despite her claim) needs a competent story (writing) penned by a competent author in a lot of cases.
30 Days of Night is an incredibly mid comic book that resulted in a mediocre film. But that didn’t stop it from selling an insane amount of copies, spin offs and the film turning a profit.
So….a high concept is usually enough. But if you can’t pitch the high concept to the public on its own, then execution matters that much more.
Yeah she says this
The founders of a utopic empire feed on their own to maintain immortality.
Mortal Tether: Teenagers inherit the earth after an alien virus twists all adults over age 20 into immortal monsters. Lord of the Flies meets Stranger Things.
Pitch for my current WIP: Way of Kings x From Ash & Blood meet Dune in a Roman Empire inspired Science Fantasy
Hi Alyssa. Does everything you explained in this video apply to only novels? Or can it be applied to short stories as well?
ma'am please make a video on- how to change the pov from one to another when I wanna switch and add new story of the running protagonist from the first pov. for example- I am writing a couple story but the story belong to the boy pov and they spent the time together and after the half of the story I wanna switch to girl pov with revealing her secrets with the day spend with him. how I can write that. And is it ok, If I am adding new pov after half of the story? please reply.
Go and read Trust by Hernan Diaz. He did multiple POVs, more like a book within a book within a book, and pulling the pieces perfectly together at the end. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 2022 with Trust, and I have a feeling that the structure of the book contributed to the prize.
"I was ready to die in the shadows. Then I met him."
The World Building of One Piece meets the politics of Game of Thrones.
Goblin Princess is the story of a homeless orphan girl who has to stop a goblin uprising to save the goblins.
The big battle scene happens in the third book, Warrior Princess, where she leads the goblins to war to save the kingdom.
Dark Lady is the story of a lone swordsman who confronts a dark sorceress and finds that she's his long lost sister. That one has wizards, demons and a corrupt politician.
mash ups with X meets Y to me is a HUGE turn off. It feels like the author just copied both stories, removes all originality of the book.
Every story is an X meets Y story, even if it's not as blatant as the examples presented here. The X is the type of story everyone is familiar with. The Y is your spin on it.
@@VictorDiGiovanni i know, but when the marketing is based on X meets Y, that's when you lose me
@@xChikyx agreed, but with tens of thousands of books/movies that come out every year, you have to do something to cut through the noise. For most people, "It's a really good book" just isn't enough of a selling point.
"A ragtag gang in a uchronic western setting chased by bounty hunters and demons" How does it sound?
Does this work for short story
YES! It does. Are you an author too? Are you working on a book at the moment?
No one writes better than me. Allow me to prove it with a poem. Be inspired.
Battle The Beast
The night came quicker than usual, as it caught me by surprise
Before I found some shelter, the darkness dimmed my eyes
My panicked heart was racing, my legs instinctively took flight
I aimlessly ran in circles, in the horror of blackest night
In the distance I could hear it, the sound of a terrible beast
I could hear its claws scratching, I could see the flash of its teeth
There was no way to outrun it, for it traveled on all fours
So, faced with just one prospect, I turned and faced the noise
The blade I held, had a faint sparkle illumined by distant stars
The beast knew I would use it, as it stalked me from afar
My wait drug on for an eternity, as I firmly stood my ground
But soon it would be over, for I heard approaching sounds
Throughout my life, I purposely planned, to never travel at night
It was the only way to miss the beast and avoid a deadly fight
Yet, life has a sense of justice, not willing to let me cheat those plans
From facing the beast who stalks me, from facing what haunts a man
A silhouette sprang out of the blackness, striking hard the first blow
I vollied back with the tip of my blade, causing the beast to moan
Collapsing together, mortally wounded, the dawn began to break
I saw the beast that had attacked me, it was myself, in whom I faced
Battle The Beast
By William Cooper
From the book, Coop's Corner Collection Inspirational Stories and Poems
Check out the first poem, (Lisa Moo Moo Marie) turned into a country song.
The Strange Curse of Carrie Carroll:
What if Beauty and the Beast happened in an alternative universe where magic was used to fight the Civil War?
What happens when your soulmate's ideal woman is your best friend? And she's your ideal woman too!
This not concept is not called high concept, but a slug line or log line. One sentence elevator pitch.