And of course, along with Babooshka, we have the sublime Pina Colada Song (or whatever it's called).

Man gets tired of his 'baby' and puts an ad in the contacts page of the paper: do you like pina colada, getting lost in the rain (?), if you're not into (or are into?) seafood, and the taste of champagne, meet me on the beach at midnight or some such drek - and then of course, he gets a reply, and lo and behold it's his 'baby', so that's all right then.

Novelising popular song ---- well, why not ... didn't they make the film Convoy from the song Convoy.

Jim

(just off to get my guitar and learn Bermuda Triangle by Barry Manilow - which I believe is a song version of La Disparition.)

So, high-concept equates to less re-usable?

Ok. I think I get it now, too. Jane Eyre - to use a well-known example - is high concept, I guess, in that it deals with a lowly governess marrying her upper-class employer and having power over him because he is blinded. Because of all the calss issues, this would have been almost unthinkable in Victorian society. So if I now write a book about a Victorian governess marrying her employer, I will, of course, be accused of re-writing Jane Eyre (but obviously less well).

But doesn't all this stuff rely, to a point, on well-known the original is? I mean, look at JK Rowling. No one can possibly argue that Harry Potter is high concept. It's stealing all over the place. As a child, I loved The Worst Witch, which was exactly the same concept as Harry Potter, except that it was girls learning to be witches in a witches' academy. But The Worst Witch, for whatever reasons, didn't reach the kind of mass market that HP did, thus allowing it to be 'copied' without accusation more easily. No one, these days, could ever get away with even slightly imitating HP.

What I mean is, if it's high-concept and very famous, then you probably can't repeat it. But if it's high concept and not very famous, then you probably can. But maybe it also depends on the shelf life of the book/film. Notting Hill isn't going to last forever, ths keeping the possibilities for future ordinary-guy-falling-for-film-star novels/films open.

Because of all the calss issues, this would have been almost unthinkable in Victorian society.

You'd think so, wouldn't you, but when you're researching, it's worth separating out how people said social divisions should operate, and how they actually did. A governess was a lady, as her employer would be a gentleman (see Elizabeth Bennet arguing with Lady Catherine) - i.e. they're both gentry, which was the most fundamental division and the hardest to cross. Everything else was on a sliding scale.

So if I now write a book about a Victorian governess marrying her employer, I will, of course, be accused of re-writing Jane Eyre (but obviously less well).

Poor-but-honest earning the right to marry above her is one of the archetypal stories: Cinderella, Bridget Jones. And it didn't stop Catherine Cookson making a very nice living out of these kinds of stories.

I think 'high concept' is very different from these archetypal stories, in fact, I rather think they're opposites. 'High Concept' is a particular situation that can be summed up in a sentence: Die Hard meets Bridget Jones. Archetypes appear and reappear throughout the history of stories. (Yes, The Seven Basic Plots is really getting to me.)

Emma

(Yes, The Seven Basic Plots is really getting to me.)

Phew! I was thinking for a moment that you might just be really clever.

<Added>

Wrong face. Was meant to be ;)

Which still implies that High Concept is the more difficult to replicate (obviously; because an archetype is by definition something that is repeated...)

When the trade starts talking about High Concept, it always reminds me of IT types talking about the killer application: the single, very simple idea that's so irresistible and so easily explained that people will shell out for a whole new book/cinema ticket/gadget/software/hardware, or will see it as the answer to at least three people on their Christmas List.

I don't think it's a coincidence that High Concept books are rarely interestingly written - the quality and originality of the writing isn't the point; its chief function is to make sure that everyone who wants to find out what happened when Bruce Willis meets Renee Zellweger does find out at painlessly as possible.

Emma

<Added>

And yes, by definition it isn't replicable, which is why authors who can come up with them repeatedly are so successful: it has to be NEW! Whereas the point about how storytelling really works is that it's as old as the hills.