High Concept vs. Strong Story Concept

What should you be looking for when generating story ideas? A conversation I had in one of my recent online classes.

In a recent Screenwriting Master Class course I taught which focused on generating, developing, and assessing story concepts, this subject came up in our online discussion: What is high concept? Here are my responses about it and why I prefer thinking in terms of strong story concepts.

It’s like the Terry Rossio quote in Lecture 1:

“Most aspiring screenwriters simply don’t spend enough time choosing their concept. It’s by far the most common mistake I see in spec scripts. The writer has lost the race right from the gate. Months — sometimes years — are lost trying to elevate a film idea that by its nature probably had no hope of ever becoming a movie.”

This is why we talk about that screenwriting principle:

Concept = Hook

In the current environment in Hollywood, where as one producer told me, that original stories are “untested” and therefore harder to set up, it’s almost a lock cinch requirement that a spec must have a story with a hook, some unique element which the distributors can build a marketing campaign around.

It’s just really hard to set up original material nowadays in Hollywood. The path of least resistance is to write a script with a strong story concept. I prefer that to high concept

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Your confusion about what “high concept” means is one of the reasons I prefer the term strong story concept. High concept has come to mean many things to many people and often carries a negative connotation (e.g., simple story with thin characters). Conversely, a strong story concept can be something neatly described in one line … but it can also be a story with distinctive character types.

You mention The Banshees of Isherin. In my view, there is a distinctive hook to that story concept: One man decides he no longer wants to be friends with his closest companion. That simple conceit immediately leads to two things: The mystery of why one rejects the other … and the emotional turmoil which will result from this decision. Put those two characters in a small Irish village — interesting characters in a compelling situation — and you’ve got a strong story concept. Is it a high concept? I don’t think anyone in Hollywood would think that. It’s too offbeat and requires great skill to write a story that is so character-driven. But it is most definitely a strong story concept for a plethora of reasons, not the least of which is that conceit — one friend rejects another — transforms into the entire Plotline from Fade In to Fade Out.

So my advice: Focus on generating, developing, and writing scripts with strong story concepts.

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Some time ago, I came up with an alliterative definition of “story” around the letter C. Here it is: “A character we care about confronts complex challenges created by a compelling crisis.” Apart from the alliteration, I like it because it does three things:

— The characters have something about them which generates an emotional connection with the audience.

— A Protagonist confronting tests, obstacles, and complications is the very nature of drama, and further elicits an emotional resonance on the audience’s part because they yearn to see how this character navigates that tricky terrain.

— The compelling crisis speaks not only to the Call to Adventure / Inciting Incident, but also informs the Plotline, the shape of events which play out across the narrative.

But your articulation does something which I think is critical: “specific moment in their lives.” One of the questions I ask my students in the very first assignment they do in the Story Development class we have at DePaul is this:

Why does this story have to happen to this character at this time?

They journey the Protagonist takes is the journey they need to take. Not two months from now. Not a year ago. Right. Now! Their need. Their Unconscious Goal. This is the reason for this story to be a story and emerge into being.

They have to go on an outer journey (plot) in order to go on an inner journey (psychological transformation).

And in my view, the reason why the Story Universe creates that Call to Adventure is because of the Protagonist’s inner state of being at the moment of Fade In.

As J. Campbell says about the beginning of the Hero’s Journey: “They are just making do. They need to change.”

This is one of the earliest things I consider when assessing a story concept: Why does this Protagonist need to go on this journey? What is their Unconscious Goal, their deepest need which drives them forward in their transformation-journey?

If you can come up with a complex character and put them into a compelling situation, that is a great starting point in cracking open a strong story concept.

I’m in the middle of teaching my eight Core classes, each a one-week online course delving into character-driven screenwriting and storytelling. The next class begins with the principle Character = Function and explore character archetypes: Protagonist, Nemesis, Attractor, Mentor, and Trickster. Start date: February 13. For more information, go here.