|
The Life and Mind of DamnBlackHeart
This is to help me stay actively writing. So expect to see rants, tips on writing, thoughts on subjects, me complaining of boredom, reviews, anime, movies, video games, conventions, tv shows and whatever life throws at me.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Your Summary Should Never Have These: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
You want people to read your story? Well, the first thing people see, besides your title, is your summary. It’s what attracts them into checking out your story and if it doesn’t sound interesting enough than they won’t bother with it. To help you I’ve compile a list of pet peeves when it comes to summaries. As long as you avoid them than you’ll have a greater chance in gaining readers and not repelling them away.
1. I suck at summaries. This is the biggest repellent of them all. No one cares to know if you suck at summaries or not. They just want to know what your story is about. If you have “I suck at summaries, just read" then they won’t bother at all. They’ll just assume that you’re lazy and that your story is terrible because of the lack of effort you put into your summary. After all, you wouldn’t read a book if it had that in the summary, so why would you put it in yours?
2. Terrible spelling and grammar. A summary that isn’t correctly punctuated, capitalized, spelled and whatnot is not going to gain readers’ attention. They will skip over it. They’ll assume that your actual story is just as terrible and riddle with errors as well. And please, don’t abuse the exclamations marks and capitalization.
3. No Summary. No matter how long or short a story is, there is NO EXCUSE to not have a summary. That is a guarantee way to repel readers because why would they bother to check out the story if they don’t know what they’re getting themselves into?
4. Just read it and find out. This is just as worst as “I suck at summaries". Readers want to KNOW what your story is about before even bothering to check it out. People wouldn’t read a book without knowing it’s summary, so why would they want to read your story which might be about something that doesn’t appeal to them?
5. AU, OOC, Fluff, Lemon, etc. You shouldn’t be putting warning labels in your summary when the site has a function that lets you select warning labels. If it doesn’t there’s a reason why Author’s Note exist. Explaining your warning labels is always recommend in your Author’s Note and not in your summary. Why? Because it’s much more professional looking. Also, there’s no need to put “complete" or rated T and whatnot when the site already has those options.
6. It’s my first story. So what? That doesn’t excuse you from not following basic writing rules. Nor does it excuse you from putting THAT in your summary. Nobody cares that it’s your first story and if you say it’s not that good, they may just take you at your word and avoid ALL of your work. But if you feel the need to say it than do so in your Author’s Note and not in your summary.
7. R&R. - Or anything similar to this. This is a pointless thing to put in your summary. Why waste space to put that? Your readers don’t need to be told what they already know.
8. Avoid generic summaries. Even if you’re writing a cliche story such as “X falls into a new world and meets Y" you don’t have to make your summary sound like it. It’s generic and the last thing you want is to sound like you’re not bringing something new to the table with that cliche. Also "Will X and Y get together?" is a silly thing to ask and put in your summary when the genre you’re writing for is Romance. It’s pretty obvious and your readers will know where you’re going with the story. In other words your summary needs a bit more substance and a little less generic sounding.
9. Pairings. Most people look for stories dealing with their favorite pairings and writers list it in the summary to make it easier for them. It is helpful, however it’s not always necessary to do. Why? Because certain fanfiction websites contain a character listing and the pairing/s can be listed there and not in the summary. So it would be redundant to list the pairing twice, especially if you have a word count limit for your summary.
Also your readers are intelligent and they can gather clues from your summary, such as if you hinted a romance going on between two particular characters. So there isn’t a need to always list the pairings unless you feel that it’s not obvious.
10. Disclaimers. There is no need to put disclaimers in your summary. Not only is that sloppy looking it is also unnecessary to put there. That’s what Author’s Notes are for. You don’t want to take up valuable space in the summary just to put a disclaimer.
11. Fandom speak. Don’t smash together names of the characters or use fandom terms because people new to the fandom wouldn’t recognized them for what they are (i.e. PokeShipping, which is a term used for the pairing of Ash and Misty, or simply putting two names together like Namixas for Namine and Roxas) and are likely to just skip your story because of it. It is also unnecessary to use them in your summary if the site you’re on offers the function to list characters.
12. Keep it simple and list your points. Many writers make the mistake of giving away the ending of their story in the summary, or the main plot twist. A summary is meant to hook the readers, not explain to them everything that will happen. You definitely don’t want to spoil your own story for them.
13. Chatspeak. You’re are most likely to cause instantaneously rage within your readers. They’ll be annoyed and won’t even bother reading the summary if they see chatspeak.
14. Not a Mary-sue! Whether or not this is true, it is not something you want to put in your summary if you wish to gain readers. Especially if you want to be taken seriously.
15. Messages. The point of a summary is to write what your story is about. It’s not for you to write messages for readers. If there’s something you want to tell them that is why Author’s Note exist. For example: This is my first _____ Fanfic. It’s based off the movie. It may be a bit Mary-Sue and I apologize for that. This is just my version of it with my OC added in and please read it. R&R.
That’s not an appealing summary.
I’m not listing these pet peeves to be mean but to help. When people know what NOT to do they’ll be a step closer to the right path. After all, a summary IS an important aspect to gaining readers. There’s also a difference between judging a book by it’s cover and judging it by it’s summary.
Covers are unpredictable. They can be related to the story or they have nothing to do with it. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words and there’s nothing clear about what the cover has to do with the story. So there really is no way to judge the cover of a book. However, the summary is possible to judge because it gives the readers information on what the story is about. They can decide whether or not the story sounds appealing to them and if they want to actually read it.
That is why I insist writes to do their best in coming up with an actual summary and to put some effort behind it. It doesn’t have to be perfect but decent enough to hook the readers into checking your story out.
 DamnBlackHeart · Mon Jul 01, 2013 @ 04:54pm · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
