High Concept Fiction: What It Is and How to Write It

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Publishers receive a ton of submissions year-round. It takes a lot of time, effort, and money to go through them all, searching for the next bestsellers in literature.

This is why the publishing industry has come to love high concept fiction. They are clear, plot-driven stories that can wow potential readers with just a few short sentences.

What is High Concept Fiction?

High concept fiction is any fiction whose premise can easily be described in a short, attention-grabbing, easy-to-understand way. An agent could easily pitch it to a publisher, the publisher to its retailers, the retailers to reviewers, and the reviewers to your readers. 

Publishers and readers love it for its brevity and strong, narrative hook. People can immediately understand what the story is mostly about, making it easier for them to make a decision whether to pursue it or not.

Take these books and movies for example:

  • The Hunger Games—In a dystopian future, kids are forced to fight to the death for entertainment.
  • Life of Pi—After being shipwrecked, a boy must share his lifeboat with a tiger.
  • Pacific Rim—People use giant robots to fight monsters who come out of a mysterious rift.
  • Groundhog Day—A cynical weatherman is trapped in a time loop, forcing him to relive the same day over and over again.
  • The Maze Runner—Amnesiac teenagers must find their way out of a giant maze full of monsters.

Sometimes they are so brief that their titles serve as their summaries. You’ll find most of these in movies. Snakes on a Plane, Godzilla Vs Kong, and Kill Bill pretty much tell what their plots are about. 

A high concept plot isn’t required for a book or movie to be published and released. However, their strong visuals and easy-to-grasp premise do make them easily marketable to a wide audience.

Qualities of High Concept Fiction

It is often hard for publishers, agents, and reviewers to say what high concept fiction is. It usually boils down to an “I’ll know it when I see it” situation. 

If you’re a writer thinking of writing such a story or wondering if your story is already high concept, here are a few qualities you should look for.

1. Story-driven

High concept fiction is always about the plot rather than the characters. These stories, while still touching on character progression, rely more on their unique settings and situations to move forward.

For example, there’s a brief discussion about the moralities of cloning in Jurassic Park but it mostly focuses on cool dinosaurs and action scenes. 

2. Something unique

While some high concept stories can be derivative, those that succeed in thralling the masses have something unique to their plot. This often has to do with the setting or a certain plot element.

In Time uses money as literal currency. The Matrix has its simulated reality. Harry Potter makes full use of Hogwarts, and by extension, the entire wizarding world.

Sometimes this uniqueness is in your method of storytelling or its physical form. Bartimaeus Sequence uses footnotes to provide information and flesh out the title character’s personality. House of Leaves takes this further by utilizing unusual page layouts and style. 

This uniqueness isn’t strictly about doing something that’s never been done before. It’s also about doing familiar concepts in new ways. Warm Bodies avoided being a generic zombie film by having the protagonist slowly turn back into a human. 

3. Mass marketability

High concept stories have large and diverse audiences. While they’re easily categorized into certain genres, they can still appeal to readers outside of those genres’ readers. So someone who’s not into romance might still find high concept romances enjoyable. 

This is why a lot of high concept fiction often become popular. They have the potential to spread quickly and crossover into different media, genres, and platforms.

4. What if…?

A lot of these stories are guided by an overarching “what if” question. It is what makes the reader immediately curious and what moves the story in the first place.

Just look at these examples:

5. Highly visual elements

When a person reads a high concept story, their minds immediately conjure images of the plot. It is easy to imagine events and characters, making the story more understandable and their experience more satisfying.

This is also why many high concept books are made into movies. The prose easily translates into the screen.

Tips for Writing High Concept Stories

Here are some important tips to keep in mind when writing high concept fiction. 

Start with an easily understood, and enticing premise.

Mass appeal is a huge part of high concept stories. Simplify your concept until you can easily summarize it into a few sentences.

But as you simplify it, you also run the risk of making it boring. Make sure to keep the extraordinary details in the premise.

So, something bland like this:

A marijuana dealer plans to move a huge shipment of weed from Mexico to the US.

Can be turned into this:

To clear his debt, a low-level weed dealer creates his own fake family to help him smuggle marijuana from Mexico to the United States.

Do a twist.

Find a concept you like and add your personal spin to it. To make it easier, you can:

  • Turn it into a what-if question—What if dinosaurs survived to the present day?
  • Combine two popular elements—Treasure Island meets Star Trek.
  • Use “but”—It’s a buddy cop story but with anthropomorphic animals.
  • Use a unique selling point—A girl is killed and her ghost solves her own murder.

However, a twist isn’t enough to make a story high concept. The twist must affect the plot itself, not just the characters and setting. 

Use tropes and archetypes.

Tropes and archetypes survive years of constant use because people like them…and creatives find fresh ways to use them.

Fresh and familiar is a powerful combination. You give your potential audience a comfortable starting point while teasing them with something new.

A story that is completely different from anything ever done is a gamble. A story that is similar to some bestsellers is easy to pitch to publishers and market to a readily available audience.

Make sure your story has a high impact.

It is not enough that you add a twist, combine two different things, or use familiar elements. The potential impact of the story must also be enormous and sometimes even disastrous. 

This is what turns an ordinary concept into a high concept. How can the stakes be higher? How can the characters struggle more? How can the audience care more about the story? This potential for something big is part of what hooks people into diving further into your work.

However, high impact also means high risk. If you give your audience a powerful premise and end up with a weak conclusion, it ruins the story. 

High Concept VS Low Concept Fiction

Where high concept fiction focuses on the plot, low concept fiction prioritizes character development. 

Low concept fiction isn’t easily boiled down into brief summaries. It is more introspective, focusing on everyday life, relationships, and internal movement. You fall in love with the characters, the plot comes second (but is still important).

Some examples of low concept fiction are Little Miss Sunshine, Black Swan, Pulp Fiction, Normal People, and A Little Life.

Because it is harder to explain, low concept fiction can also be harder to market. That doesn’t mean it won’t sell well though. Manchester by the Sea isn’t high concept but still captivated the masses. 

Understand though, that these two aren’t equivalent to “high brow” and “low brow.”  High concept fiction can be easily understood but still provoke deep thought and discussion. Similarly, low concept fiction can go viral because of its use of powerful characters, despite its more difficult-to-understand plot. 

One concept also isn’t above the other. They are simply different ways to tell a story. People will judge your story based on different factors that may or may not align with these two concepts.

What’s your favorite example of high concept fiction? Share it in the comments below!

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