A gift to my readers!
Time running out to grab your FREE copy of Before the Light, on Amazon!
The world’s most powerful quantum computer cracks the secret of the Big Bang but refuses to share this knowledge with the world. Why? Read the book and find out!
ENJOY!
High Concept is a term that’s commonly used in Hollywood to refer to a film or story that contains specific characteristics.
Steven Spielberg has referred to High Concept as a high-level idea that can be expressed briefly, allowing one to hold the entire story in the palm of one’s hand.
High Concept, at its most basic, entails three crucial aspects:
1. It contains a core concept that is unique.
2. It appeals to a large audience.
3. It can be stated in a single sentence, allowing us to “see” the overall story at a glance.
Uniqueness
Of course, no story is truly unique. We’ve often heard that there are only so many stories out there, and they’ve all been told before in one way or another. But this does not mean that elements within these stories can’t be arranged in unique combinations.
Jurassic Park is a classical monster movie, but the idea that the monsters spring from the DNA of prehistoric animals, which has been preserved in tree resin, was new and unique at the time.
Wide Audience Appeal
This is one of the most difficult elements to pin down. After all, if we knew beforehand precisely what would prove popular with audiences or readers, we’d all be millionaires. Having said that, there are sources that we can look to for hints. The top ten most popular books and movies is a good place to start.
Can Be Stated Succinctly
How is it possible that one can encapsulate and visualise an entire story in a single sentence? Well, that’s what’s so marvelous about High Concept – it’s a pithy statement that allows one to intuit the overall shape of the story in a few bold strokes.
The movie Seven, for example, very much a high concept story, can be stated in one sentence: A serial killer selects and murders his victims based on each having committed one of the seven deadly sins. Although the details are missing, we can easily visualise the general thrust of the story, while being intrigued by the idea of the murder plot being based on biblical sin.
Summary
High Concept is a sentence, describing the story in broad strokes, which encapsulates an element of uniqueness and appeals to a wide audience. Some of the most popular books and movies of all time have effectively utilised High Concept to achieve enduring popularity.
The Nostalgia of Time Travel
This post is unashamedly about my latest novelette, The Nostalgia of Time Travel. The novelette represents a new departure from my usual writing, although I’ve tried to keep external events that are at the core of every genre-driven tale a strong feature of this story.
The novelette is part of my ongoing attempt to bring a more authentic, literary approach to my stories while still managing to retain a strong outer journey—something I began exploring in my previous novel, The Land Below.
Here’s a short description of The Nostalgia of Time Travel:
After the accidental death of his wife, Miranda, Benjamin Vlahos, an American theoretical physicist relocates to a remote resort town in Northern Queensland to work on a set of equations to prove that time travel to the past is possible. As he struggles with the math, a deadly cyclone approaches, dragging with it ghosts from an unresolved past.
As always, I’ve worked with nuggets mined from different genres in an attempt to keep the story fresh and unpredictable, but I’ve taken extra care to keep the emotional and psychological dimensions authentic.
Here’s an early indication from the first Amazon.com review. I’d love to hear from others whether you think I’ve succeeded.
It’s a book for people who enjoy exploring the complexities of human nature By hannah on August 8, 2015
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
A thought provoking novel, that excels at creating a rich, layered world for his characters, with lines you want to read out loud, just to hear them. It’s more of a book for people who enjoy exploring the complexities of human nature, rather then just a waiting for the next plot point.
Invitation
If you enjoyed this post, kindly share it with others. If you have a suggestion for a future one, please leave a comment and let’s get chatting. You may subscribe to this blog by clicking on the “subscribe” or “profile” link on the bottom right-hand side of this article. I post new material every Monday.
The Level:
Scarab’s amazing popularity on Amazon (it reached the #1 spot both in the US and the UK in the science fiction/high tech category), persuaded me on this course of action. Mission accomplished, I returned to The Level with gusto. Whether this new novella will reach the heights achieved by Scarab, we will just have to wait and see.
Below, is a short press release of The Level, as it appears on my amazon page.
A man, suffering from amnesia, wakes up in a pitch-black room, tied to what feels like a wooden chair. He discovers he is being held captive in a derelict insane asylum haunted by inmates who are determined to kill him. Help comes in the form of a beautiful, mysterious woman dressed in a black burka who offers to show him the way out, if only he can remember who he truly is.
If you enjoy your science fiction spiked with mystery, suspense and thrilling twists…
If you’re fascinated with the pervasive nature of love, consciousness and the limits of personal freedom…
Then scroll to the top of the page and grab this brand new novella, now!
—
There you have it. Effective? You be the judge of that. Perhaps you can write in and give me your opinion. I’d greatly appreciate it!
Better still, you could grab your own copy of the book and write a short review on amazon!
Summary
The Level is a novella in the science Fiction/Psychological/Thriller category, which explores the nature of love, consciousness, and personal freedom in the setting of an abandoned insane asylum.