Mastering Fiction: Creating Big Ideas That Make Your Novel Stand Out

[@kit888]

Sounds like the Hollywood concept of High Concept. Titanic meets Miami Vice. Bambi meets It's a Wonderful Life. Mashups, but also ideas so compelling that people want to buy the story without knowing the details (dinosaur theme park, evil superheroes, interstellar giant robots). The practice of being able to summarize it, is similar to the Hollywood idea of the logline and the elevator pitch, for all stories, not just High Concept. It's useful to use Hollywood's terminology because there are many existing explanations and examples. Orson Scott Card talks about 4 different types of story, depending on whether they concentrate on Millieu (world), Idea, Character, or Event (MICE). He explains this in an article on the Writer's Digest website.

[@thisricardopalma]

Normal people, experiencing extraordinary things. That is my cuppa tea.

[@bradley.p.beaulieu]

That’s true, though I think normal people are extraordinary, just in different ways. The trick is to bring that out in the story.

[@lisev415]

Thank you so much for these videos

[@bradley.p.beaulieu]

You’re so welcome! I’m glad you like them.

[@trendane]

As I was watching this, I was thinking back to stories I had started many years ago and I realized what a disjointed mess most of them are. Heh! Probably one of the main reasons I abandoned them. Another excellent video! Thank you, sir!

[@bradley.p.beaulieu]

It happens to all of us. Crafting an idea that can sustain itself over a full novel is a lot harder than I gave it credit for early on in my writing.

[@larissakey8011]

I have a lot of my ideas fall apart because i tend to get the idea for a line or something that sounded good in my head. Its not always a story but like in a recent work I want to use the line "Part of her wanted to taste that familiar poison."

[@bradley.p.beaulieu]

I've found it's pretty common for ideas to fall apart a bit once you really put them under the microscope. But, like you, sometimes they're not full story ideas, but rather a part of a larger story. And that's cool, too! Anything that adds depth, intrigue, complexity, or what have you is great for your stories.

[@mcgeeal5342]

I noticed a couple of times you used references to other stories as their tag-line, like ocean’s 11, the Matrix, etc. I heard an anecdote that this is a popular way to pitch new movies (Speed’s pitch was “Die Hard on a Bus” IIRC). Do you find this is a good way to pitch ideas as well? Popular story X with an interesting twist Y?

[@bradley.p.beaulieu]

Yes, definitely! In fact, I give that advice in one of my other presentations (coming to KZbin soon). The marketing around movies is really powerful and they tend to really nail the messaging in very brief ways. Mashups like you mentioned are a good way to generate interest, so long as they grab. But be careful about overreach in queries and even in-person pitches. You risk eye rolls by being the thousandth person to compare your book to The Hunger Games or A Game of Thrones of what have you.

[@JoelAdamson]

"Wait, that's what that book is about?" What I kept saying in the first section of the video.

[@bradley.p.beaulieu]

Did you have different takes?

[@JoelAdamson]

@@bradley.p.beaulieu No, it was just that in a couple of cases I couldn't tell that's what the story/idea was about (from reading). I've read half of Way of Kings but if someone asked me what it was about, I'd have a hard time telling them. I think I just wasn't into Black Sun Rising, much as I wanted to love it, and probably wasn't paying attention by the time the revelations came along.

[@bradley.p.beaulieu]

Okay, that makes sense. In some cases, I'm oversimplifying quite a bit so I can talk about ways to attack (inspire?) new story ideas.