There is one amazing unwritten rule about concept. Create a character.
Then create a goal and make your character do the thing he least wants to do in
order to achieve it. Make him struggle. Here's an example:
1) We create a character. In the worst case scenario
the character will be a casual every day normal woman. She doesn't stand out
and there is nothing special about her.
2) Okay, so what's the thing a normal woman
would hate to do and would never do if given such an opportunity? Let's say she
will have to find herself a pimp and become a prostitute. But why on Earth
would she do that?
3) Because she has a goal. Her daughter was
kidnapped and our character suspects that the kidnappers are pimps and she must
join this type of underground society if
she wants to see her daughter again.
To brief it up, here's how our concept will look like. A normal every
day woman must enter an underground ( prostitute ) society in order to search
for her kidnapped daughter. To make it more interesting we can add - later on
she discovers a whole network of under aged children trafficking.
There you have it. Do you see how easy it was to create a powerful and "catchy" concept? That's the
professional way to do it, but sadly very few self-published authors do it.
Why? Because they are dying to tell a story, only they, themselves, can relate
to, which makes their story UNMARKETABLE TO THE MASS AUDIENCE.
Don't write a story that ONLY YOU want to read. Don't write a story in
which YOU EXPRESS YOURSELF. After all YOU WANT TO SELL that story. And if you
want to sell something make sure it is appealing to the customer. Something HE
can dig his teeth into, NOT YOU.
