August 11, 2020
Concept Fiction: a How-to Guide for Intelligent Narratives
By “concept”, we usually refer to an abstract theme, topic, or group of ideas. And so, in this context, concept fiction refers to writing that is not plot-based but rather themed-based.
In some way, this might make you think that concept fiction is a matter of genre, but this is not entirely accurate. True, most e.g. crime fiction is plot-based (whereas literary fiction isn’t), but there is an important difference.
Whereas the idea of genre fiction (or of literary fiction) informs the aesthetics and form of the narrative – that is, what it looks like – concept fiction refers to the process itself: how to write the narrative.
Of course, having a different methodology of writing directly affects the outcome – and so, to some extent, the aesthetics. This means that:
- although concept fiction is applicable to any genre (or literary fiction, or experimental fiction), it does somewhat blur the established borders between genres and can destabilize its own position in the literary category.
- it’s an invaluable tool of imagination and creativity.
Especially if you’re a genre writer, the first element above might sound like something bad. It isn’t, but it also depends on your priorities. We’ll get back to this later in the post. For now, a simpler way of putting it would be this: “Concept fiction helps your work stand out from the vast crowd of mediocre works”.
Much better, isn’t it?
In this post we’ll take a closer look at all these elements, and see how writing concept fiction can help you produce intelligent narratives that are cohesive, symbolically rich, and intriguingly original.
On Concept Fiction and Methodology
Concept fiction, as I mentioned, is first and foremost about method. In other words, writing a concept-based narrative refers to how you, as an author, approach the creation of this narrative primarily from a perspective of themes rather than plot and even characters.
It’s usually best to have something graspable in mind when talking about such complex terms, so allow me to present some examples right away.
Consider the following three examples of authorial methodology. Imagine you’re an author about to start writing a story. Notice how each methodology below steers you in a somewhat different direction.
Plot-Based Methodology
Mary, 43, feels distant from her husband John, 46, after their only son leaves home for college. But his own feelings toward her also seem to be lackluster. He spends much time away from home, and his behavior makes her suspicious. She thinks he’s having an affair, and decides to start spying on him. Her discovery will be shocking, but it will also be the turning point for re-appreciating their relationship.
Character-Based Methodology
Mary is a 43-year-old woman who feels aimless and lost in life. She questions her feelings for her husband, and her insecurities conflict with her desire to take control of the situation. Part of her wishes impossible things, part of her craves the security of the known and familiar. Her personality (formed by a difficult childhood and reinforced by her past experiences) makes her extremely suspicious and even vengeful, clouding her judgment. Can she overcome her shortcomings to save her marriage? Is it even worth it?
Theme-Based Methodology
Life is about conflicts. We spend our days trying to balance between opposite forces, between what we want to do and what we’re expected to do, and even between temporary desires and their far-reaching consequences. Insecurities and control, feelings and security. Is the past the best guide for our actions, or should we make our own future?
The Practicalities of Writing Concept Fiction
Looking at the samples above, you might be thinking “Well, a good novel involves doing all at the same time”.
You wouldn’t be wrong thinking that. Indeed, a good novel needs (some sort of) plot, (some sort of) character development, and (some sort of) conceptualization. The exact balance – determining the “some sort of” part – will depend on genre, personal style, and other such factors.
However…
At the same time, you must understand that no matter how experienced you are, your methodological focus will affect your narrative progression.
If you focus on plot, you will miss on character development. At the very least, you’ll have to work harder later – and the result might not be as organic. Similarly, if you focus on characters, you will de-emphasize plot development.
Of course the key here is that, depending on your genre, that is often perfectly fine. If you write, say, romance, you need characters that are typecast, rather than realistic. Similarly, if you write literary fiction, you likely care about characters more than you care about plot.
But what about a concept-based methodology?
Essentially, writing concept fiction is a methodology that leaves all options open – in terms of both plot and characters. Starting with (and focusing on) concepts, allows you to flesh out the symbolic foundations of your story. In a sense, a concept-first approach helps you to focus on affect and meaning.
How Concept Fiction “Works”
With concept fiction, you begin focusing on concepts; not the plot, and not the characters. Naturally, you might have some idea about the plot, and also some idea about characters.
But the whole point is that, by focusing on concepts, you can help yourself understand your priorities (and plan your writing accordingly).
Let’s return to the earlier example (and the theme-based methodology). If you begin writing your story having a clear idea of the concepts and themes involved – in this case: conflicting feelings, opposites, desire vs responsibility, insecurity vs control, past vs future, etc – this allows you to:
- conceive and plan the symbolic framework of your work. If you have identified, say, conflict and contradiction as the key two concepts of your story, every metaphor, every allegory, every little piece of symbolism and allusion can be informed by this.
- increase cohesion by allowing key concepts to pervade the story.
- organically incorporate parallel storylines into the main one. And, since they are all informed by the same concepts, you just acquired yet another tool of expression. One parallel storyline can explore repercussion A, whereas the main storyline can explore repercussion B.
- create a much more sense-making plot. When you have concepts to work with, you no longer need to devise larger-than-life plots, nor is your plot hopping about in a disconnected manner. With concepts, you learn to create narrative journeys.
- ideate realistic and relatable characters. Dracula, to name my favorite example, is rather mediocre both in terms of plot and in terms of character development. However, what has made it a classic is its author’s (perhaps only subconscious) deployment of concepts related to sexuality, loyalty, desire, and a panoply of other, ever-relevant aspects of the human experience.
The list above is certainly not exhaustive. But instead of expanding it further, let’s instead see how you can work with concepts.
Working with Concepts
Many works of concept fiction begin with “what if” questions. Quoting Davyne DeSye:
I’ve spent my whole life with “stories” in my head that are triggered by the stupidest little things. I’ll see a billboard or hear a snippet of dialog, and begin with “What if…” I’ll hear a song (especially one without lyrics) in which I’ll hear a story, and off I go into my own private wonderland.
What-if questions inspire you to doubt your reality, wanting to reinterpret it. This leads you to zero in on important concepts. In our example with the middle-aged couple, we’ve established conflicts and opposites as two key concepts. The next step is to build the narrative around them.
- Plot. Both the main storyline and any parallel storylines must explore the concepts, even tangentially. In a story about conflicts and opposites, a storyline focusing on pure evil is out of place.
- Characters. Similarly, your characters must reflect the key concepts. Can you imagine Hamlet – a story about inaction – featuring a protagonist who is determined and unwavering?
- Symbolism. Is your story about conflicting forces? Boost its affective power by relying on relevant symbolism. Whether it’s an allusion to mythological characters – Janus comes to mind – or skillful use of juxtaposition, you have a lot to gain by focusing on your concepts.
- Narrative Journeying. As you might recall from past posts – narrative endings, narrative tension, or narrative divergence points, to name three – a solid narrative evolution is critical for creating intelligent narratives. Always think of how your plot and characters work to explore your concepts.
Concept fiction, regardless of the genre, works to promote a universality – an “everyone, everywhere, always” mentality, rather than “this person, in that place, at that time”. In other words, concepts let you escape the narrow confines of your particular story.
But is that something you should care about?
Is Concept Fiction Right for You?
I mentioned in the introduction that concept fiction destabilizes the work’s position within its literary category. In other words, working with a concept-based methodology blurs the lines between genres.
This is a good thing from an artistic perspective, as it promotes originality – not to mention all the good stuff we’ve seen, i.e. cohesion, rich meanings, increased affective power, and so on.
From a marketing perspective, however, things become somewhat more complicated. To put it bluntly, the more concerned you are about reaching a well-defined audience that expects the known and safe, mediocre and done-to-death story, the less interested you will likely be in concept fiction.
This is one reason there is some relation between concept-based narratives and literary or experimental fiction. When you write in such modes, you put expression first, so you’re not that limited by generic constraints.
With genre fiction, however, you’re always balancing between what you want to write and what fits the genre. Can you write hard science fiction if you want faster-than-light travel? How about Gothic with clearly supernatural entities?
Can the Marriage between Genre and Concept Fiction Work?
If William Blake believed in the marriage of heaven and hell, I see no reason why we can’t be as optimistic about combining genre fiction with a concept-based methodology.
To be successful, this… marriage depends on three factors:
- Your motivation and aims.
- The level of familiarity you have with the genre.
- Your willingness to put in the extra work in marketing.
Your motivation and aims – that is, what you’re expecting from writing – determine your course of action. If you want to make money, even by disregarding the art, then all the power to you; feel free to ignore everything you’ve read here.
If, on the other hand, you’d like to strike a balance, then finding this balance will also depend on your familiarity with the genre. If, for example, you’ve been writing romance fiction for ten years and you’re intimately familiar with its tropes, structure, characters, etc., then it becomes easier to focus on concepts while still respecting these tropes and structures.
Inevitably, however, if the generic borders are a bit blurred, and you care about audience reception, you’ll need to put in some extra work in terms of marketing. The details will depend on your circumstances, but it basically boils down to i) highlighting the originality of your narrative, while still ii) emphasizing its belonging to the genre you’re marketing in.
Concept fiction often has foundations in multiple genres. This can be a nuisance, but also an asset.
You Can’t Please Everybody
In lieu of a more traditional conclusion, allow me to repeat something I’ve mentioned a lot in the blog: You can’t please everybody, nor should you try to. Few things are more likely to push your work into mediocrity than an attempt to please everyone.
Since we’re talking about concept fiction, I could mention that, although elements of the methodology have informed the writing of my earlier works, it was with Illiterary Fiction that I truly embraced it 100%.
As a result, Illiterary Fiction is an extremely symbolic, complex, multi-layered novel that operates on several levels simultaneously. There have been readers who’ve missed the point entirely.
Indeed, if you take a look at the reviews and ratings left for Illiterary Fiction, you’ll see that – at the time I’m writing this – most ratings are 5-star ones, while there is also one 4-star rating, one 1-star rating and one 2-star rating. There are no 3-star ratings.
Concept fiction helps you create narratives that some will figure out and love, when others will miss entirely and hate.
But it will rarely lead to narratives that are “It was OK”; and that’s always a good thing.
Note: Also check out my post on The Perfect Gray, my newest literary-fiction novel that was born as a result of this post!
6 Comments
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There are few things so irritating as someone claiming expertise they don’t have, so take this with a grain of salt of appropriate size.
First, though, however conceptual anything gets, it has to be about humans, specifically human individuals, first. Why? Because whatever justice means in an alien world, most of us don’t care. Which is one of the reasons there is so little literature with only aliens in it. If it’s the same as ours, fine. If it’s something else, and the writer doesn’t connect it to humans (as LeGuin does in The Left Hand of Darkness), I, for one, don’t care. It’s not approachable – and I read to live other lives, not to think about ideas that will never happen to me.
That’s always a fine line.
One of the reasons I like structuring a story with Dramatica is precisely because it, if used to its capabilities, guides you through making decisions in themes exactly the way it makes you create complex characters, and design a plot which has meat on it. From the beginning. Before anything goes into final form. Consciously and deliberately. As a scientific type, I’ve really enjoyed that – what is built in serves as skeleton for the writing, so that when the writing is finished, it all connects underneath.
The how is still voodoo – it is an odd beast. The results are what I like. The art, if any, is on top of that, and separate, but easier because it is in service to structure.
I suspect my particular brain would have figured out SOME of the connections, but, even though it took years, it has a solidity I still find awesome as I continue writing toward the planned and plotted end.
As I said, I’m no student of literature and literary methods. But what you talked about resonated, as a steel lattice might if given a hammer blow in the right spot. It doesn’t happen by accident.
Your comment on alien worlds is a very interesting one. For argument’s sake, let’s expand it to any fictional world that we don’t know — say, a novel focusing on a “primitive” tribe. Surely, their experience must be extremely dissimilar to ours; perhaps even more than an alien race dealing with, say, political intrigue.
I think the key lies in understanding how different “something else” really is. I mean, virtually by definition a novel written by a human will be anthropocentric. That is to say, even in an exclusively alien world (sans humans), I’d argue that human issues will be still present. And so, even if the writer hasn’t created direct parallels to the human experience, it will at least be implied. Whether that’s appealing or not, of course depends on the author’s skill as well as other factors, having to do with genre and marketing.
But it will appeal to a much smaller proportion of the population – which may or may not be a problem for the writer.
Oh, I agree; on both counts!
I like this. I really like this. I think it is a necessary tool. I’ve read Brazil’s most celebrated creative writing professor’s creative writing magnum opus and boy does it suck big time. He is too character-centric, to the point of ignoring critical plot points even at Hamlet. What a shame. Concepts as these guiding thematic ideas is a real good guide to writing. At least that’s how most of the best literature I’ve read seems to reverse engineer. Also, I can’t stress enough the necessity of planning ahead. Improvisations may happen, but they never happen in a vacuum. Jazz is the prime example: you improvise, but you have a head (main theme, main melody) and a chord progression (background, scenario, outline, archetypes), so you can fly at will. But only once you have all that settled. And a lot of practice on your back. Arts are crafts really, muscular memory, one only improves, getting better, by doing it more and more and critically assessing one’s own (previous) work. That criticality only comes from consciously analysing other works. Art demands art. Curious. Anyway, yeah, I’m having a hell of a time because I did not plan too well ahead on my novella, so I’m breaking my back.
I certainly subscribe to planning ahead. Not every single detail has to be planned ahead – and the author should be ready to change the plan – but a good structure and a solid narrative foundation requires planning. Your metaphor of jazz music is an apt one.
Personally, I’ve done both – planning and not planning. When I began writing, I was just coming up with stuff along the way, without any planning. It kinda worked, because I have the ability to remember and process huge amounts of information, but later, when I began planning, I understood it not only made my writing better, it made it easier, too.