Conquering The High Concept

by James Bonnet

In Hollywood and New York, the concept is king. To succeed as a writer or filmmaker, you need more than a skillfully constructed novel or beautifully directed film. You need an idea that will be talked about, generates excitement and compels the right people to get involved. A great idea, as it turns out, has an anatomy and a structure and that which makes a subject fascinating, a title intriguing, or an idea exciting can be described and learned. Understanding the HIGH CONCEPT is the key to accomplishing that.

But what is a HIGH CONCEPT?

Simply put, a high concept is an intriguing idea that can be stated in a few words and is easily understood by all. An asteroid the size of Texas is hurtling toward the earth. That’s a high concept. Everyone knows exactly what that means. It arouses an emotional response and in just eleven words, everyone knows what the movie is about. Doomsday.

Creating a high concept implies an ability to formulate your idea in its most powerful and concise form – to make it as short and as marvelous as possible. The fewer the words the higher the concept. Jack Nicholson is the Wolfman. The movie didn’t turn out well, but it was a great idea – a very effective high concept.

Now, is this idea of a high concept something the studios cooked up to stifle art and increase profits? Obviously. But does it also have merit? I think it has merit. Whether you plan to create highly visible, commercial films like those created by Jerry Brucheimer, James Cameron, and Steven Spielberg or highly acclaimed stories like The Sixth Sense, Ordinary People, or Harry Potter, I think it is important.

For one thing, being able to reduce your idea into something powerful that can be expressed in a few words forces you to come to terms with what the story is really about. In other words, to create a true high concept, you not only have to understand all of the important structural elements, you have to get at the very essence of your story.

In the second place, it is valuable shorthand that can help facilitate communication. If your project is going to be sold to, or financed by, a major production company or publisher, then the idea not only has to be intriguing, it has to be brief. It has to move easily through the chain of command – and make everyone who hears it eager to listen to your pitch, read your script, or look at your film. Then after they’ve heard it or read it and loved it, they have to be able to explain it to others in the chain and intrigue them.

If the idea is so complicated that it is difficult to explain or understand, it will never get through the chain of command. The people at the top may never hear it. It can get lost in the translation.

In the 70's there was a very popular 90 minute TV show called MacMillan and Wife, which starred Rock Hudson and Susan Saint James. Steven Bochco, whom you’ve no doubt heard of because of shows like NYPD Blue, was the story editor. Julie Epstein introduced me to the Executive Producer, Leonard Stern, who referred me to Bochco. Bochco had never seen my work and had no idea what I could do. We had a meeting, discussed a couple of ideas, but nothing happened.

Then one day, while I was in my kitchen making some coffee, a thought popped into my head – and on an impulse I called Bochco.

“What’ve you got?” he asked, after the usual amenities.

“Susan gets lost in the Bermuda Triangle.”

“I love it,” he said. “I’ll get back to you.”

Ten minutes later he called me back and said: “I hope you can write. You’ve got a deal.”

Now, as it turned out, Bochco had called the producer, who loved it and told Bochco to call their contact at NBC. Bochco called the contact and the contact called his superior, and pitched it to him. Then the contact called Bochco back and Bochco called me. All within less than ten minutes.

It was the highest paying show on television, and at that moment, “Susan gets lost in the Bermuda Triangle” was the sum total of what I knew about that story idea.

The high concept is an important part of both the beginning and the end of the process. In the beginning, it is a powerful seed that can help you both create and sell your story. At the end of the process, it is the face you will put on the story when you try to market it. It’s what the public will see on the book jacket or movie poster. And here again, your mission has to be accomplished in very few words. So what we’re talking about is going to be useful in both the front and the back ends. And it would be nice to know up front that you have a concept that can be marketed.

There are four elements that can help you accomplish this goal –

1. The FASCINATING SUBJECT,
2. The GREAT TITLE,
3. The INCITING ACTION, which is the problem of your story, and
4. The HOOK, which reveals the uniqueness or special circumstances of your story.

What is a FASCINATING SUBJECT? A fascinating subject is just that, a subject that is in itself intriguing. The story arouses our interest just because of the subject. That’s a tremendous asset.

Not long ago, I walked into a bookstore. I walked past the first table and a book caught my eye. I walked another 20 steps, stopped and went back. The title that caught my eye was: Cleopatra’s Secret Diaries. The thought of learning the intimate secrets of one of the world’s most famous lovers was very intriguing to me.

What are some of the other subjects that have worked in the past? Demonic possession, money, sex, power, dinosaurs, UFOs, scandalous love affairs, serial killers, extra terrestrials, cloning, survivors, eternal youth -- I’m sure you can think of many others.

Some of my favorites are: justice, immortality, mysteries and mummies. Give me a mystery in a pyramid and it can be Indiana Jones, Brendon Fraser, or Donald Duck, and I’m hooked. I can’t resist it.

So it’s important to find the subjects that really fascinate you and will fascinate the audience you are trying to reach. In any event, it’s helpful if your story is about something that is in itself intriguing.

Finding the fascinating subject is one of the things that forces you to discover what the story is really about.

What is a GREAT TITLE? A great title is a title that not only tells you what the story is about – what the fascinating subject is -- it reveals the genre, which is to say, it whets your appetite for the type of feelings associated with that genre. The feelings associated with a thriller, a mystery, a love story, an adventure, and so on. Each of these different genres evoke a different emotional adventure.

Magic is a good subject. Merlin is a good title for a story with that subject because Merlin is associated with that event.

Doomsday is another popular subject. Armageddon is a good title for that subject. We immediately know it’s about the end of the world and all of the activities and feelings related to that event.

Catastrophes. What better title than: Titanic?

Lost civilizations. Atlantis says it all.

Murder. And this is one of my favorites: The Black Widow – not a great movie but a great title.

Some other good titles are: Shakespeare in Love. I’m interested. The Perfect Murder. I saw it. The Sixth Sense, Roswell, ER, Kiss the Girls, Along Came a Spider, Star Wars, Gladiator, Jurassic Park, The Mummy, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I bought it.

The words of a good title are words like Titanic, Roswell, and The Sixth Sense that have come to be associated with significant events of a particular subject. And it helps the audience identify the type of emotional experience they can expect.

Finding a great title forces you to discover the subject and the genre -- the source of the feelings experienced by the audience. You know it’s a great title when it tells you everything desirable to know up front. When you find a great title, it hits you like a revelation. You get very excited. And if you have a great title and a fascinating subject, you are half way there.

The third element is the INCITING ACTION. The inciting action is the onset or the cause of the problem. It is the cause of the action. It is the reason action has to be taken.

• An asteroid the size of Texas is about to collide with the earth. Action has to be taken. It has to be destroyed or diverted.
• A serial killer is loose in the neighborhood. Action has to be taken. He has to be caught.
• A baby is left on a doorstep. It has to be properly cared for.
• An invading army has to be confronted and defeated.
• An erupting volcano has to be escaped from.
• A man-eating shark has to be destroyed.
• A raging fire has to be put out.
• A terrible disease has to be cured, and so on.

You will know it is an inciting action if action has to be taken -- if there is a problem and something has to be done about it – NOW.

Finding the inciting action forces you to come to terms with the problem of your story. And stories are about problems. It is a prerequisite in all stories. You have a problem and that problem is resolved. It is one of the essences of story – that without which there would be no story. No matter how big or small the story, it will be focusing on a problem. And everyone in that story will somehow be involved in that incident. And everything everyone does in that story will in some way effect the outcome of that incident.

Revealing how that problem was created and how it can be resolved is at the heart and soul of a story.

The HOOK is a unique aspect of the problem which suggests intriguing possibilities. It is a special circumstance surrounding the problem that raises the stakes and increases our interest.

• Susan gets lost, not in the mall but in the Bermuda Triangle.
• A volcano erupts, not in the desert but in the middle of the city.
• A baby is left on the doorstep, not of a kindly nanny but of three bachelors.
• Star-crossed lovers meet, not at a church social but on the Titanic.
• A woman is kidnapped and her husband refuses to pay the ransom.
• Satan takes possession of a teen-age girl.

The hook implies a difficulty which makes the threat more dangerous and intriguing.

In Fatal Attraction, a successful lawyer has an affair, not with your average “other woman” but with a beautiful psychopath.

Finding the hook forces you to come to terms with what is unique about your story. It is the unique aspect which will make the idea fresh. You identify the problem and emphasize the difficulty.

So these are the four elements. The fascinating subject, the great title, the inciting action and the hook. All of which can be expressed in a few words. And if you are going to create a high concept or a great idea, you’ll find these four elements very useful.

The idea here is that you can create a super powerful seed working with these elements. A seed that will not only help you create a great story, it will help you sell it on the front and back ends.

James Bonnet http://www.storymaking.comis the author of Stealing Fire From The Gods: A Dynamic New Story Model For Writers And Filmmakers. He was elected twice to the Board of Directors of the Writers Guild of America and has written or acted in more than forty television shows and features. For the last twenty years he has been the director of Astoria Filmwrights, a research project studying all the significant story models and theories about story from around the world and their connection to the creative process, screenwriting, storymaking and film. His seminar, James Bonnet’s Storymaking, The Master Class, is the culmination of this work and reveals the breakthrough “unified” theory of the origin and nature of story. This new knowledge is not available anywhere else and is relevant no matter what kind of story, true or fiction, you want to create for whatever medium.

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