Hollywood loves High Concept.
by Anne R. Allen
Here it is! My first “High Concept” novel. At least it’s a close to High Concept as I’m likely to write. I have to admit I’ve been a little terrified somebody might come out with a book with the same title or plot before my slow-writer self got this one to my publisher.
But here it is, finally: TA DA!!
GOOGLING OLD BOYFRIENDS.
A woman going through a painful divorce starts Googling old boyfriends in order to “reconnect with the past and remember who she used to be”—but every old boyfriend she contacts mysteriously drops dead.
What is High Concept?
“High Concept” is a phrase that originated in Hollywood, but is now used in the publishing industry as well. It describes an idea that’s easily pitched in one sentence or phrase, preferably one that can be put into the title.
The ultimate in High Concept is “Snakes on a Plane.”
Spy thrillers, hard sci-fi, and action-suspense generally need High Concept to sell big. But cozies, women’s fiction, romance, fantasy, and literary fiction generally don’t.
High Concept stories are plot-driven. Non-High Concept stories are character-driven, or rely on setting, history, psychology, or other elements to draw in the reader.
Novels like The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl are mega-sellers, but they’re not High Concept. They’re psychological domestic thrillers, which are as much about character as they are about plot.
What I’ve tried to do with Googling Old Boyfriends is incorporate psychological twists in characterization with a High Concept plot.
I’ll have to see what readers think. (And remember that every time you write a review, an unreliable narrator gets her wings—or comeuppance—or something like that. 🙂 )
What if Your High Concept Idea is Stolen?
I would have been pretty sad if somebody had published a book called Googling Old Boyfriends before me. I can’t pretend I wouldn’t have turned to my chocolate stash and called a friend to rant a bit.
Of course I’d also like to think my version would be better. And funnier. And of course the other book wouldn’t involve Camilla Randall, my sleuth who’s a magnet for mystery, mayhem, and Mr. Wrong.
Unfortunately, my High Concept idea could still be stolen. Anybody could copy the idea and write their own version of Googling Old Boyfriends and I couldn’t do a thing about it. That’s the law. It’s not considered plagiarism if they don’t copy the exact text.
And if the copycats were absolutely scruple-free, they might sue me for using the title before they did, accusing me of ripping them off in advance, using some kind of TARDIS.
Yes. That really happened. Remember the #Cockygate scandal from earlier this year?
Of course it didn’t end all that well for that fanciful litigator.
You Can’t Copyright a Title or an Idea
The reason #Cockygate happened is the same pesky fact that keeps a lot of new writers awake at night: you can’t copyright a title or plot idea.
I remember when my first UK publisher launched a local author’s historical novel, the first in what they hoped would be a series about local history. But some US vanity press published a book with the identical title and similar subject matter only a few months later.
The author was furious at our publisher for not doing something to stop the publication of the other book. But the first publisher couldn’t do a thing. Nobody had broken any laws.
Except the law of averages, I guess. Two novels with the identical title and setting, published in the same year, is an unlikely coincidence.
But it does happen. And no amount of expensive litigation can undo it.
So old pros don’t waste much energy worrying aboutidentical titles. We know that titles get recycled all the time. Some category romance lines only seem to have 30 titles they slap on every book they publish.
And just this month, Nora Roberts came out with a novel titled Blood and Bone even though Tara Brown published a novel with the same title in 2015, and there are at least 5 other authors on Amazon using it too.
But it’s not a High Concept title. A book called “Blood and Bone” could be about anything from surgery to garden fertilizer.
Sometimes identical titles can even work to your advantage. When Catherine Ryan Hyde published Don’t Let Me Go in 2013, she saw another book was coming out with the same title at the same time. So she invited the other author to her blog so they could do some joint promotion. Win/Win. It showed Catherine really is the generous spirit who coined the phrase Pay it Forward and helped the newer author as well.
Can You Protect a High Concept Idea?
Yes. There are some things you can do to protect your idea.
You can copyright the logline.
A logline is that one-sentence description of the plot. Logline copyright can protect Googling Old Boyfriends because the title doesn’t talk about murders, but the logline does.
Again, here’s the logline: “A woman going through a painful divorce starts Googling old boyfriends in order to “reconnect with the past and remember who she used to be”—but every old boyfriend she contacts mysteriously drops dead.” That sentence incorporates the title and CAN be copyrighted.
Screenwriters often copyright loglines when they’re pitching a film or TV script, because there’s serious money involved in selling an idea to that industry, and theft is a real danger. Here’s a good overview of how and when to copyright a logline for a film or TV series.
But that doesn’t do much for that perfect High Concept idea that’s right there in the title, like “Snakes on a Plane.”
Or you can trademark a brand.
You could trademark the phrase “snakes on a plane” if that were your brand rather than your title. Say you wrote books in a series titled Pythons on a Passenger Jet, Anacondas on an Airbus, and Boa Constrictors on a Boeing. Then you might trademark “Snakes on a Plane” as your series brand.
That is, if you lived in an alternate universe where Snakes on a Plane hadn’t already been established as somebody else’s brand.
Unfortunately that didn’t stop Ms. Cockygate. She tried to ban all writers from using the word “cocky” in their titles by trademarking the word as her series brand.
But a whole lot of romance authors had prior claim to titles containing that word. And she tried to sue them all.
Bad idea. Dickish moves usually are. And you do not want to incur the wrath of the RWA. Those are some fierce ladies.
Except for that little problem, Ms. Cockygate would have been fine. She was trademarking (rather than copyrighting) her title by trademarking one of the words that ran through the series.
If I decided to write a new series based on Googling Old Boyfriends, I might consider trademarking the title as the series brand name. But again, that wouldn’t be prudent, because that company up in Mountain View would probably say they have a prior claim to all things Google-ish.
But I can trademark “The Camilla Randall Mysteries.” That’s a series brand.
So you CAN protect your concept by trademarking a word or phrase—as long as nobody beats you to it. You can learn about the legal details of trademarking a series at the Copylaw.com blog. (The advice is sound, although I don’t like his idea of trademarking for the purpose of “revenue streams” from people who inadvertently use your trademarked phrase.)
Don’t Worry So Much about “Theft” of a Non High Concept Plot
I often hear from new writers who are afraid their plots will be stolen if they talk about their books online or in critique groups.
But I tell them to rest easy. Newbie writers have a lot to be wary of these days—rotten agents, bogus publishers, toxic critique groups, overpriced marketing services—but plot-purloiners should not be high on the list.
There’s truth in the old saying: “There are no new stories, just new ways of telling them.”
Obviously when somebody uses the same High Concept plot as yours, it’s more of a problem than two books with a plot like “two prisoners form a friendship and find redemption through acts of common decency.” (The Shawshank Redemption.)
Or “After living a cold, unfeeling life, an aging professor is forced to confront the emptiness of his existence.” (Wild Strawberries.)
Character-driven stories can’t be copied in the same way High Concept stories can. Only you can write your story your way.
There are No New Plots
Experts don’t agree on the exact number of narrative plots, but there aren’t many. In the 19th century, Georges Polti listed 36 “Dramatic Situations.” In 1993, Roland Tobias counted 20 “Master Plots,” and in 2005, Christopher Booker compressed the list to 7 “Basic Plots.” And the late, great Miss Snark said there were only 6.
But everybody agrees it is finite. So—no matter how original your story feels to you, somebody has probably told it before. Maybe last week. And they probably didn’t steal it. They thought it up just the way you did.
It’s amazing how often an idea that sprouts in your brain from the seeds of your own imagination can take root in other people’s brains at the same time. This is because human minds often respond in similar ways to prevailing news stories, music, weather patterns or whatever—and end up generating similar thoughts.
Evolutionary biologists call this phenomenon a “meme.” (The original meaning of the word, before it came to mean much-shared social media pictures of LOLCats.) The original term—from the Greek mimema—meaning something imitated—was coined by biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. He observed that certain stories, melodies, catch phrases and fashions can flash through a whole culture in a short amount of time.
This explains why we can’t copyright ideas. Everybody has them. Very often the same ones.
The Real Value is in the Completed Book, Not the Plot Idea
Unfortunately, new writers can overvalue their ideas and embarrass themselves with plot-theft paranoia. You never want to mention copyright in a query letter. It red-flags you as an amateur.
Everybody who’s been in the business very long has run into the guy at the party who wants to sell you his idea for a novel. “You just write down the words, and we’ll split the profits 50/50.”
Children’s author Kathleen Duey wrote about this in a comment on Writer Beware several years ago,
“Try that split on any other kind of business person. ‘I think that a colony on Mars would be awesome and I am willing to give a 50% share of all eventual proceeds to anyone who can make it happen.’ I am always careful to walk away, if that’s what it takes, to keep anyone from telling me the idea…just in case I ever write something similar by accident.”
I’ll bet a lot of you have been approached this way. I sure have.
In fact, this delusion is probably as old as writing itself. I imagine Virgil probably met a guy at the Emperor Augustus’s orgy who said—
“You’re a writer? I’ve got this idea for a book about a guy who sails around the Mediterranean. Meets up with big storms. Monsters. Some hot nookie. You can write it down and we’ll split the proceeds 50-50.”
I hope Virgil had a good lawyer.
What Do You Do When Somebody Publishes a Book Like Yours?
But what do you do when somebody does publish a book that’s similar to yours? Even if they didn’t literally “steal” it, you can feel kind of ripped off. As I said, I would have been sad if somebody published a Googling Old Boyfriends before I did. But I know it could happen. Everybody Googles old Significant Others, and most of us are a little embarrassed about it.
But I need to remember that publishers and readers tend to be sheep. If one book is popular, they’ll want another just like it.
And if mine is better, I’ll be way ahead. It’s not about being first. Never has been.
In fact, I’ll bet some guy told Virgil when he first pitched the Aeneid, “A lost dude sails around the Mediterranean after the Trojan War having adventures? Sorry, that’s been done. Haven’t you heard of that Homer guy’s story, the Odyssey?”
Did Virgil steal Homer’s plot? I suppose you could say he did. But it doesn’t seem to have hurt sales for either of them for the last millennium or so. It’s the telling that makes each story unique. And that’s going to be true of your story, too. It’s not about the plot. It’s about the writing. We all need to remember that and chill.
But keep some chocolate handy.
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) December 16, 2018
So what about you, scriveners? Do you have a High Concept idea you want to protect? Have you ever been approached by one of these “here’s my idea; you write it and let’s go 50/50” people? How did you handle it?
BOOK OF THE WEEK
Available on Amazon. FREE in Kindle Unlimited.
“Okay, ’fess up.” Mickie McCormack’s eyes twinkled as she plunked a book on the counter. “If you’re that distracted by the Internet you’re either looking at porn or you’re Googling old boyfriends.”
I felt my cheeks heat up.
“Um, I’m guilty of the latter, I’m afraid. I’ve just run into an old boyfriend and he’s invited me to dinner, but…”
The bell on the door jingled.
There he was. Captain Maverick Jesus Zukowski, six foot, three inches of tall, dark, and the-one-who-got-away.
The Camilla Randall mysteries are a laugh-out-loud mashup of crime fiction, rom-com, and satire. Morro Bay bookshop owner Camilla Randall is a magnet for murder, mayhem, and Mr. Wrong. But she always solves the case in her quirky, but oh-so-polite way.
In this stand-alone 7th episode, Camilla befriends socialite Mickie McCormack—a sexy, mysterious older woman who’s going through a painful divorce. Mickie has been Googling her old boyfriends to reconnect and “remember who she used to be.” Unfortunately every one of those boyfriends soon ends up dead.
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A lot of times we see duplication of stories because everyone’s hitting the low hanging fruit. Even the published pros do it. The low hanging fruit is the idea everyone comes up with.
Like if you get an anthology call for mysteries in restaurants, the editor will get a ton of stories about a restaurant critic being murdered for a bad review. So you might stand out if you come up with a story abut the restaurant being a dead drop for a spy.
Wilhelm’s Rule (from Connie Wilhelm) is to come up with the first idea, which is the one everyone else comes up with, discard it, and move onto a second idea. That’s probably only a little better, so discard it, and come up with a third one, and then do a fourth–and write the fourth. That’s the one no one else is writing. It’s how I came up with a story about were-sasquatches and were-aliens.
Linda’s Rule
Ask yourself what everyone is likely to write on that subject, then skip over and start looking for what no one else is writing.
Linda–This is a fantastic tip! I love it. Definitely this is how you stand out. Start with something everybody’s asking for–then refine it so it’s “the same but different.” Great advice. Thanks!
Duplicate movies happen all the time. Usually not the title, but the concept. (Asylum Productions banks on copying other movies’ concepts!) And so no surprise they happen in books. Elements of my books are similar to others. It just happens sometimes.
There’s no other Cassa books out there though, so may be I should consider trademarking it…
Merry Christmas, Anne!
Alex–That’s so true. Suddenly there will be three biopics of the same person, or three films set in Tudor England. The memes are out there and everybody grabs onto the same thing. I hope your Cassa books remain out of the “meme” verse. 🙂
Way ahead of you, Anne. I’ve been googling old girlfriends since the internet came out. Love your high concept, BTW, and your logline. I also hope your google/death scenario doesn’t catch on because there’s one old girlfriend I definitely don’t want googling me 🙂 Best for your book!
Garry–When I got my first computer, the installer told me that most people’s first Internet searches are for porn and old girl/boyfriends. We are not alone. 🙂
Hey Anne, & thanks once more for a fine post. I just re-read the brilliant Jacqueline Woodson’s YA novel, *If You Come Softly* — a twist on the oft-re-packaged *Romneo & Juliet* & it causes me to wholeheartedly agree with your statement, “The real value is in the completed book.” Keep up the good work.
CS–Romeo and Juliet stories are everywhere aren’t they? But nobody “steals” them. They are kind of hardwired to our cultural consciousness. I don’t know Woodsen’s book, but I’ll have to check it out. And yes, it’s all about writing the book, not thinking of the premise, which somebody is bound to have come up with before you. Thanks!
FINALLY, I get a definition and root of where meme comes from! Thanks, Anne. Yes, this is the number one concern of my new students. Will everyone else steal their great idea? When that idea is inevitably killing people to harvest their organs (*hits head against desk*) I kindly explain that they are four decades too late. I am amazed at the number of people who get an idea for a sci-fi or speculative story, but never read sci-fi, so don’t know that the idea is old hat.
And yes, I get the 50/50 deal proposals once a year. Love your comparison!
Thanks also for the def of high concept. I am leaving this post having gratefully learned more than expected, as usual!
Melodie–Isn’t that interesting how “meme” has morphed to mean those things we share on social media?
Definitely idea theft is the #1 fear of newbies. Anybody who mentions it in a query is saying “I’m a total amateur, armed with lawsuits, run for your life!”
And yes, so often it is people who don’t read who have these great ideas, so they have no idea that “sweet young thing goes to work for hard-ass billionaire boss who falls for her.” may have been done by one or two authors before them. 🙂
The other day I looked up my novel, In Love by Christmas, on Amazon. I wrote it a few years back. It’s a very quirky Christmas tale deserving of an R rating. When I looked it up, Amazon coughed up not just a single title of the same name by me, but AN ENTIRE SERIES entitled IN LOVE BY CHRISTMAS by someone else. It’s billed as sweet and wholesome and has a bunch of very good reviews.
Oh! Gnashing of teeth! Howling! My book is NOT sweet and wholesome, though it also has a bunch of good reviews. But who would choose a weird title like that but me?
Oh well, nothing to do about it. Maybe some of that author’s readers will find my book by mistake! Or not.
Sandy–That’s the worst–when you have the title first and people use it for something totally different. Haven’t they ever heard of Google? Grrr. That’s happened to me with The Best Revenge.
At least the author of the series didn’t decide to trademark it and sue YOU. That’s what happened to the victims of #Cockygate. Let’s hope you don’t get any nasty reviews from the people looking for “sweet and wholesome.”
Thanks Anne, so true. I actually moved from Harlequin’s London editors to Silhouette New York after Alan Boon decided UK wasn’t ready for a hero who might have arrived by UFO. This after the editorial process was complete. New York was fine with it, but in the meantime I read a review on Romantic Times of a book where the hero…you guessed it…just might have arrived by UFO. Nothing new under the sun.
Valerie–How frustrating! Hey, haven’t they ever seen Earth Girls are Easy (one of my favorite films of all time. Jeff Goldblum and Jim Carey made adorable aliens.) And they did this AFTER the editorial process? That’s why so many people are down on the big publishers. And they didn’t even know this was going to be a new thing…:-(
What a terrific column! Hand on my heart, this morning I actually did try to Google an old girlfriend. Then I read this! So that’s spooky right there.
Second, I don’t know that I’ve EVER heard a word like “high” used to describe Snakes on a Plane- that’s a first for me.
You covered so much good ground here, I’ll probably have to read this one again. Ten years in and I think I’m still very much on the first wave of tales to tell about my world. Epic fantasy is definitely not where you go to try and find a brand new plot idea, but as you say, in the telling is all.
Nit-Pick Department: Augustus, throwing an orgy? I hope YOU have a good lawyer! I get it, he was emperor when Virgil wrote, but lady, so not happening, dude was a prude. And he would NOT be happy to hear this kind of slander. If he wasn’t dead, I mean…
Will–Too funny about the old girlfriend. Yeah. I feel the same way about funny mysteries. There are endless funny ways to kill off characters….
If you’re really going to pick nits, “orgy” didn’t have a sexual connotation until the 15th century. In Augustus’s day it was a religious ritual. Kind of like Holy Rollers with wine. I learned this stuff at my mother’s knee (and other joints.) My father was a professor of Classics at Yale, so as a kid, I knew more about ancient Rome than I did about Disneyland or stuff on TV… 🙂
Oh my goodness, a week before my book launched in 2016, a similar title and concept dropped the week prior. I found out from a friend, a journalist who wanted to interview me and mentioned my title to her editor. He said, according to her, Didn’t we already review that book?
Imagine my heart.
Long story short, it is absolutely possible that someone on the other side of the world, or the country, could have the same concept for a book. (Spoke to my lawyer and an intellectual property rights atty.)
So, you’re right Anne. Keep the chocolate handy. For me, it’s dark chocolate & sea salt.
Merry Christmas Anne & Ruth.
Maureen–How frustrating. A similar thing happened to me because of my generic name. There’s an author in England named Anne Allen, and once I went to a live radio interview where the interviewer had read one of her books instead of an Anne R. Allen book. She had prepared all her questions to address the other Anne Allen’s rather dark women’s fiction book, and she didn’t have a clue I wrote comedy. Sigh.
I’m with you with the dark chocolate and sea salt. Love that stuff!
What a great post, Anne! These creative epiphanies happen in the music business as well, which I remember from decades ago writing lyrics.
And I grinned over the newbie writer paranoia, which I just encountered last month. Newbie writer: I think my writer’s group is stealing my ideas. Me: Don’t worry about it, they aren’t. Just write the best story you can. Newbie: I think I should get a copyright. Me: On what? Newbie: You know, my plot! Me: Okay…so-o-o…you’ll be wanting an NDA with the contract, right? Newbie: A what?
Sandy’s experience would be so aggravating – great title, zesty book alongside gingerbread and mistletoe… And a series to boot — zooks!
As always, thanks for sharing your excellent thoughts. Have a wonderful Holidays!!
Maria–At least half of newbie writers seem to have that paranoia. In fact I think that’s one of the reasons they rush to publish too soon. They want to be the first to publish the brand new concept of “boy meets girl.” 🙂 It’s true that sometimes writers use other people’s stories. Like when some long-winded lady at a party tells you all about her Aunt Harriet and how she buys tons of Amway stuff from herself so that she can win the Amway prizes, that little seed may show up in the author’s next book.
I always say writers should Mirandize people they meet and say “anything you say can and will be taken down and used against you in a work of fiction.”
But that’s not stealing another writer’s ideas. It’s protecting yourself from boredom. 🙂
Congratulations on your new book, Anne. Intriguing hook.
I’ve meet a few people who wanted to give me their book idea–free, no strings. I passed, not because the stories weren’t interesting. Simply because I think each of us needs to write our own stories.
Leanne–Thanks! It was a fun book to write.
Yeah, there are those people too, the ones who think their own life stories are the stuff on bestsellers. There’s a scene in the play Auntie Mame where a self-absorbed debutante meets an author and immediately launches into her own story she thinks would make a great book. It involves a ping pong ball. 🙂
You’re right that those people should be writing their own stories down. Not that everybody can write for publication, but journaling can help them process better than telling the story to strangers. I think the motivation of a lot of those people is to be heard and have people know what they’ve been through.
Wow. I had no idea you could copyright loglines or brands. Thanks for the tips, Anne!
Ugh. I get the “book idea” proposal all the time. Most people don’t ask for a 50/50 split (some do, and I laugh in their face). They just want me to write the story so they can enjoy it. Like you, I still steer clear. But recently, I had a reader reach out who has inside knowledge of a series of local murders. THAT idea intrigues me. Since it’s real life, I wouldn’t think she’d have any legal recourse. Right? ‘Course, I’ll thank her in the acknowledgements.
Sue–Screenwriters routinely copyright loglines, but authors never think about it. Still, if you have an amazingly High Concept book idea, it would be worth the $35 to buy the copyright.
I think if a fan turns you on to a true crime situation like that, if she wasn’t personally involved, she wouldn’t expect any compensation. But an acknowledgment would be the polite thing. You could also interview her on your blog. Sounds intriguing!
Another writer published a book with the same title as mine – Dana’s Dilemma A Dana Morgan Mystery. At my next book signing, I shared a picture of her book cover and mine so people would know the difference. I typed up the first 2 pages for those interested or curious to read. Prudence, our librarian, prints up bookmarks for those authors that don’t have a hard copy book. That bookmark has the code on it so they can let their cells read it and do the ordering. I read the other book and it was okay. Bad thing was when I read mine, I thought it was only okay as well.
Quirky–Two books called “Dana’s Dilemma” — that’s bizarre. But it sounds as if you handled it well and covered all bases. At least the other one wasn’t Bigfoot erotica. 🙂
You know, I sometimes feel that way, too. I pick up one of my earlier books and say, “Who wrote ths?” They say a lot of very successful authors feel the same way. Many will never read their own work once it’s published.