Are your stories 'High Concept'?

[allenT]

High-concept is a type of artistic work that can be easily pitched with a succinctly stated premise.It can be contrasted with low-concept, which is more concerned with character development and other subtleties that are not as easily summarized. - Wikipedia

I think that ideas with GOOD and simple concepts or UNIQUE premises are also considered a high-concept (in my book) Like all Pixar movies. My story is not 'high concept' though, since it's a coming-of-age story in usual character drama plots.

Are your stories 'high concept'? or how do you define one?

[spelunkadunk]

I think mine is high-concept in that I can describe it pretty succinctly: An idealistic and naïve prince must prevent a barbaric chief from seizing control by joining forces with his enemy’s manipulative son.

But then the actual plot is not quite as straightforward as that description. And of course, there's some dark BL and changing power dynamics mixed in there.

The Claimed: A Clash of Copper and Gold | Tapas

[DasIstWunderblyat]

By your definition it is Lowly-garbage concept I cannot even put it into words or think of a work in similar vibe.
To sum it up it is another clichéd and boring "Who the fuck is me" but I try to hide the rotten smell by adding original setting, world-building, lore, and dramas.

I thought at first "High-concept" means extensive conceptualisation like world-building and such. If it was true, my story is it.

[NickRowler]

My main series is defiantly not a high concept story. The plot is not really important at all, it is mostly about the characters and their interactions and growth.

[artemficta]

Ah yes, I see that my comic Ring Spell is of the low concept breed

[nathanKmcwilliams]

Looks at Dragon Sparking, laughs and walks off. Definitely not. Even though I attempt to add layers of depth to the story, in the end, it's still an action comic where trading punches is the ultimate solution to the main character's problems.

[DiegoPalacios]

High-concept is a type of artistic work that can be easily pitched with a succinctly stated premise.It can be contrasted with low-concept, which is more concerned with character development and other subtleties that are not as easily summarized. - Wikipedia

Not sure if my concept is high or not, but i`ve been asked if i was high when comming up with the idea

"A shonen parody where the protagonist is an inanimate rock which is treated like a Mary Sue"

[domisotto]

Some are high concept, some are a pain to summarize. As I write more, I try to stick to higher concept path vs sprawling narratives like my first novel.

Here is most of my pitches:

BRIDGET JONESx365days
She’s got sass, he has abs. Together they don’t fight crime.
After an urban explorer inserts herself into a mafia family struggle, she has to team up with a hitman to escape a decrepit CIA dungeon.

A half-demon with a self-destructive healing talent is shunned by the society until he becomes a beggar, but Lady V. Unlucky, V.Average braves the civil war and magic to save him.

Space Spinster's choices: grab her loyal cat, join a caper with her nemesis & dig up her inner rebel... OR miss out on being the first human to explore the alien-run Galaxy. Ain't no time for journaling in 2696!

Her own #matriarchal clan, strong daughters and military glory is what she fights for. But until she sees men as more than pretty faces, the dogma will stop her meteoric rise.

Ex-PRINCESS-BRIDE wants to marry her DRAGON, but when a magic chastity belt threatens their HEA, these two badass adventurers are left racing against time to break the spell before it breaks their hearts.

When a total stranger knows what eats you, maybe they're your 1 true love, maybe they’re leading you straight to hell with their best intentions. 2 millenials x (burned-out athlete/overweight PhD dropout) x failure... U do the math!

[allenT]

I'm not very good at defining 'high concepts', thus I linked this video as he tells it more easily and clear.

[CarltonIsaac]

By the Official Definition in the OP’s post above, it is quite easy to decipher -

High Concept is when the story concept/premise is grander than the sum of all the characters and their parts are played out to live up to the concept. For example movies like The MATRIX and AVATAR, and books like Asimov’s FOUNDATION series and THE GODS THEMSELVES, where the story idea is so overwhelming that the characters take second stage.

Low Concept is when the characters drive the narrative and has a lesser percentage of impact on its consumers. For example movies /stories like Conan the Barbarian, Superman, John Wick, Home Alone.

My stories (Storm Sown, Destiny’s Beckoning and Delphine & Zigadias ) here on Tapas falll under the ‘low concept’ definition with the characters driving the story onward.

[Zaboem]

REGARDING THE WIKIPEDIA EXPLANATION PRESENTED BY @allenT

I've not encountered these definitions before now. Okay, if we accept these definitions (and I don't see why we wouldn't), I see my working going both ways.

Alien Fiction: Ancient Aliens abduct humans to collect them and make them fight each other. That's not dependent any specific character nor anyones development as a character. High cocept.

Soulless Saint: A robotic assassin joins a religious cult to gain access to its target. In the service, this seems higher-concept because it involves multiple types of strangeness and implies a less expected, more difficult to envision narrative. Yet, it's low concept by our definitions of these terms. The entire story is character-driven and follows the protagonist changing to adapt. That's about as low concept as one gets.

[disqette]

I would say my series is high concept, but could also be a mix of both. The basic premise could be summarized in an elevator pitch.

A poor girl and a rich boy learn they'll both be murdered in 1 year, unless the murderer is killed first.

That one sentence explains quite a bit: class differences, mystery, drama, and maybe even romance. With also a future promise of action and thrills.

Add mommy issues and blood curses, you get characters that will have a story regardless of the plot.

I feel like the plot and the characters are constantly fighting over significance lol. Without the characters, the plot would still drive the story (and vice versa).

or maybe it's just bad writing lol

Edit: I wanted to add to the discussion of what makes a story "high concept". You could have a one-liner that's just "average joe fights dragons" and sure, it's a simple concept, but I don't think it counts as "high concept" because it lacks conflict (or as Blake Snyder would put it: irony).

Without conflict or irony, "average joe fights dragons" would have to rely on good character development to be interesting, therefore making it low concept.

"half-dragon prince must stop the dragon revolution" is a decent enough twist, and with some work put into it, could even be interesting.

aaaand that's my two cents.

[Iris-Grimoire]

I'd say Splitting Image is high concept. A former villain has to become a hero to survive in society after his defeat. Remove that layer, a sorcerer with corruptive magic faces the struggles of a caged fantasy world. Only in the third layer I really get into the character dynamics or the themes of digging into the problems behind the problems and not settling for short-term benefits. However, the first ones probably don't give the full picture of the comic, so while they're very easy to introduce, the story is a little harder to explain afterwards... Soo not too sure how much it counts.

[Kittyfoofo0]

Is this high concept enough?
Vampires kidnap Unturned Humans to duel to the death.
Champions are then used as unwitting pawns to battle the Vampire Empire's ancient nemesis-- Aliens from Outer Space!
(I need 18 subs to make my Milestone ... PLEASE and Thank You!)

VAMPIRE GAMES | Tapas

[Fuzed]

Hi there, how're you doing?

I think that Occidendum is a 'high-concept' story, (assuming that we go with your definition.)

It could be summarized as:

"In a world where assassination is legal, not everything is as it seems and Nathan will have to use his brain to survive."

It's really hard to sum it up in one sentence, especially since I'm terrible with blurbs and conciseness in general.

Occidendum | Tapas

[BlunderingAlbatross]

I guess my novel could be described as low-concept under that definition because it does tend to be a lot more character-driven at times. Also I wouldn't describe it as easily pitched but that might just be my inability to summarise my own work

The End of All Things | Tapas

[sxxaint]

The other novel (from which Stains is my self-indulgent romance spin-off) is pretty high concept:

"a desert-based modern apocalyptic fantasy where people struggle to survive and monsters chow on humans, and one girl tries to stop the world ending even more than it is right now"

and i find it super interesting how different these specific concepts can be!! 'cause @blunderingalbatross's concept - and i totally expected you to say high concept when i clicked on this - is really similar to mine when you put it in a short 'premise' pitch like that, but it's sooooo much different in practice even beyond the era and setting details.

[Prisim]

Considering I can't sum up any of my books succinctly or easily...I'm going to say no, mine aren't

[Rhonder]

I think most-if-not-all of the stories I come up with could be considered high concept... or at least they're developed in my brain that way lol. I almost always figure out the scenario or premise up front and then back track to work out the mechanics of how the concept will actually work in story form afterwards.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

This is actually a really interesting question...I think I would have to consider myself somewhere in between, though.

Most of my ideas start out as really high-concept flashes of inspiration: undead superhero; demon disguised as an angel, monster princesses living in a mansion...but the ways the stories end up being written are never that simple.

The premises may be succinct and easy to grasp, but they're still just premises. The monster princesses may live in a mansion, but that simple fact is not the focus of the story; there's much more to it than that.

And to be honest, I think a lot of YA material is the same way, especially when it comes to longer stories that span multiple books/seasons. You can easily pitch them with short phrases like "MC fights monsters in fantasyland", and it's technically true that they're about that, but the best ones contain a lot of that low-concept character exploration as well.