2007 November | Drops of Blood

Archives for November 2007

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Quote for Writers

I had been advising young writers for some time that in today’s marketplace, you need to do high-concept ideas. The old style of breaking in doesn’t work anymore. Writing good books, writing them as tightly as you can, writing them as well as you can, doesn’t necessarily win you any plaudits in the marketplace. It’s a very competitive field out there, and to break in, you need to have high concept. And I always mention ‘Jurassic Park’ as the highest concept of all high concepts. A high-concept idea is one you can sum up in a few sentences — preferably one or two — and everybody must read it. Of course, in Jurassic Park, it’s ‘Scientists have cloned dinosaurs from ancient DNA, and now the dinosaurs are loose.’ There’s two sentences, and it makes you want to read that book. So I tell young writers, if you can do that, you’re going to be way ahead of the game, because publishers want high concept that they can promote and publicize and talk about succinctly. — Dean Koontz, on inspiration for “The Good Guy”