Saturday morning thoughts

~*~ Warning: this post includes discussions of plot and characters ~*~

I have been reading a Wattpad online book on writing and it made me reflect on a couple of things about my book, namely high concept and strong characters. So I thought I'd share those thoughts.

High concept:

The pitch of a book (or a movie) is a sentence that summarizes what it’s about. Also known as the elevator pitch, i.e. ‘you bump into an editor in the elevator and you have one minute before they get off - what do you say?’, famous examples include:

"Bambi in Africa meets Hamlet” (The Lion King)

“Teenagers fight to the death in an arena” (The Hunger Games)

If a story can be sold purely on the pitch alone, it is a High Concept. It is highly marketable. The Hunger Games is one.

Other examples (from storymerchant) include:

“Erin Brockovich": An unemployed single mother becomes a legal assistant and almost single-handedly brings down a California power company accused of polluting a city's water supply.

"American Pie": Four teenage boys make a pact to lose their virginity by prom night.

So what would my pitch be and is it High Concept?

Well, the plot itself is quite complicated to explain. Whenever I'm asked what my book about I feel like asking, 'How long do you have?' - needless to say I haven't nailed the elevator pitch yet. The closest I’ve come to summarizing my story in a few words is my tagline ‘How far would you go for what you believe in?’ Thinking about it today, the only thing I could think of is ‘Good fairies do bad things’, but although it describes the concept, it really doesn’t tell you what the story is about. So I think I definitely fail on the high concept front.

But then again, what is the point? To make a story marketable. Marketable to publishers? I’m not going down that route. Marketable to the public? Well, I think word of mouth is more what I’m going for. After all, very few high concepts sell something to me. I read Harry Potter well into the hype (and in spite of it) because they were casting a role and advertised it in my school. I read the Hunger Games because I liked the movie, after it was recommended to me by a friend. If anything else, the high concept of the Hunger Games turned me off. 

My conclusion is that high concepts are overrated. The value of a story, I think, is in its execution.

To quote:

‘Story ideas, treatments and screenplays can all have High Concept premises. But only High Concept projects can be sold from a pitch because they are pitch driven. Non-High Concept projects can't be sold from a pitch because they are execution driven. They have to be read to be appreciated and their appeal isn't obvious by merely running a logline past someone. This is the reason why films like "Pulp Fiction," "Star Wars" and "Sideways" could never be sold from a pitch.’

Not to say that my book is the next Star Wars, but I do think that its value is in the world, the characters and the ideas in it. And I think that is true even of High Concept books and movies. 

'Bambi in Africa meets Hamlet' really doesn't do this movie justice.

Strong characters:

You might remember my rant about strong female characters. However, the description the author of the wattpad book makes of strong characters is purely from a narrative perspective: they are characters who make choices (even bad ones), who act, and therefore move the story on.

So I analysed my own story from that angle. Stus and Rowan definitely are strong characters: they makes choices, and these choices have consequences that drive the story forward. Not so for Lacie, but I’ll come back to her in a second.

One comment The Boyfriend made while editing my book was that things for Stus happen too quickly. Because of the timeline, and the places where the different stories intertwine, I have no choice but to have those events happen to Stus when they do (or it would be confusing for the reader). After that, Stus is a lot more passive as he loses control of the situation. So his story peaks quite early on.

Lacie’s story, on the other hand, is the opposite. For most of the story she is passive. I know - I'm selling my character really well! So she doesn't act like a strong character, but I think her story is interesting because she eventually takes on a strong role. By the end of the story, when both Rowan and Stus have become powerless she is the one making the choices and making things happen. She becomes strong, when she wasn’t to start with. To me, over and above the plot resolution, that’s what makes the climax interesting.

I suppose that is why I need my three POV (point of view) characters: they take turns leading the story. Now I can see how that’s a little unorthodox (to say it nicely), but it’s not done for the sake of being original. It’s part of the story and how I need to tell it.

Relay race, anyone?

Whether or not it’s effective… well that’s a good question. But you'll let me know, right?