Sandi, I think you're close to high concept with "Teenaged lust, drugs and rock 'n roll - in the fourteenth century." Right now it's just a bit too general a description. (But sounds like a cool idea, by the way!) I don't know if it's comedy or if it's dark from that line. With teens, drugs, and rock n roll, you could go in a number of different directions.
Is it - A Knights Tale meets The Doors? (Dark tale of self destructive teen musicians in a medieval setting.)
Or is it A Knights Tale meets Meg Cabot? (More lighthearted, medieval story with music.)
Or maybe The A-List meets The Doors in medieval England/France/Germany. (Priviledged teens involved with music in fourteenth century.)
None of those is probably the right formula for your story, but you get the idea. And this isn't the only way to describe high concept ideas (as others above have said.) But editors respond to it. I used a BLANK meets BLANK format when I pitched a teen series idea to two editors at a conference, and their eyes lit up. They "got it" right away. I used the names of two YA series they knew quite well, so maybe think of it that way - find two famous YA books which, combined, give the flavor of your story.
In high concept usually you are combining two genres or two ideas that normally don't go together (er, like Die Hard meets Animal House - college kids play pranks and party hard at their fraternity, but their frat is taken over by bad guys and one teen saves the day. Hmm. Not bad, let me scribble that one down....) So I think your idea is very much high concept (rock n roll stars in the fourteenth century - which is what a troubadour might be considered) and could be sold as such. It all depends on how you try to sell the idea in your query.
Yeah, I work in Hollywood. So high concept is everywhere here.
