How to Crush Your Story Concept
Turning an Okay Concept to Good to Great!
Welcome to the Apple Hair CANON!
Here, I’ll explore creating a fictional universe, and I’m hoping you’ll follow along with your own world. I’m by no means an expert, so let’s discuss how to create a believable, magical, and captivating world. Let’s be storycatchers together!
Want to read Apple Hair, the boy band fantasy novel, from the very beginning? You can start here! Apple Hair is a fictional, Asian American boy band from Hawaiʻi.
Welcome to the newsletter, and I’m excited to lay down the foundations of our storyworlds together, one word at a time.
Hi, storycatchers! In the last edition of the CANON, I talked about stakes! It was so fun to talk about what characters have to lose. We can see stakes in every type of story. Something else that we can study is concept. What is a good concept? Is there ever such a thing as a truly original concept, and how do we elevate our story concept?
The term “concept” gets thrown around quite a bit! But what exactly is a concept? A concept is the core idea of your story, often compared to the bones of your story. I like to compare this to the Nexus in League of Legends—if it dies, then the whole story fizzles out.
A concept can be a question. What if ___ happened? What if this story were combined with another story? A lot of the time, the concept can be boiled down to one sentence. For example, with The Hunger Games, the concept might be: a teen reality television fight to the death in a dystopian America. It might take a while to boil down your concept like this. But trust me, it’s worth it—especially when you want to give a little pitch to anyone curious.
Do you prefer high concept stories? A high concept story is something that is simple, very interesting, and can appeal to a big audience. The Hunger Games counts as high concept. But I’d like to talk about one of my faves these days, the anime Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End. I can’t find anything bad to say about this anime. Even if you’ve never watched anime before, I highly suggest it. The storytelling and detail are epic.
The concept of Frieren can be boiled down to a question: What if a retired elven mage goes on another quest? It may sound simple on the surface, but what if “retired” didn’t mean that she stopped adventuring because of exhaustion or age, but because she had already saved the world? Frieren starts off on the “second” part of Frieren’s journey, but we see everything through her eyes for the first time.
The concept of this anime is appealing. Who doesn’t want to see a retired mage show her awesome powers? But it is also simple enough to be said in one sentence. Anyone who loves fantasy or adventures or epic powers would naturally be drawn to Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End.
The concept is where it starts. When that is well established, then we can add on our GMC and stakes, which should tie all together seamlessly.
Can you think of a story that had a killer concept? Let me know your top concept. Why did that appeal to you? Did you appreciate how the author combined certain tropes? Did they reverse a certain expectation that you had?
That brings me to answer our question we posed at the beginning: can a concept be truly unique? I think that this is a tough one. I know the common saying is that nothing is truly unique. But honestly, I think that every story can be unique. Because even though a concept sounds similar, the writer can put so much of their own personality and personal experience—and that is truly one-of-a-kind.
Thank you very much for joining the CANON this week. Next time, we’ll be diving into an exclusive from one of the members of Apple Hair! What would you like me to discuss in the next post? Comment below. Or jump into my Chat or on one of my Notes, and I’ll be happy to hear your input. Let’s continue studying the concepts all around us this week!