Ladies and Gentle-nerds, the first Guide point not covered by Ezn! But one very needed considering how many fics are punished with the infamous "I suck at summaries" in their summary. I read so often that people don't pay attention to those fics, so here are my two cents to avoid this automatic rejection.
First of all, I will use the term description instead. Summary and description are two different things for me. A description is a blurb that is supposed to make a reader interested in a book, be it Wattpad or printed book.
A summary summarizes the whole thing very dry and may spoil. I associate it with school classes, not fun reading.
Something I've noted, Wattpad descriptions are stupidly long. And many start with a character introduction. Which isn't necessarily bad, but just so overdone.
I only really describe the first few chapters of my works, especially if the work will have a strong tonal shift later on.
My logic is, the description gets the readers hooked on the first few chapters, these first chapters on the rest of the work. I only need to describe a small part of the fic, so I can keep the description small. Which I like, because I would like to use the same description on AO3 and FFN as well. These sites, especially FFN, have tiny description windows compared to Wattpad's!
Now, here are two methods, one admittedly rather rigid which may not work for all works, I want to introduce you to.
Who is the main character?
What is happening?
Where is it set? (This point may be ignored.)
When? This point can also be omitted.
Why is this happening? Unless the why is a mystery that will be discovered in the work.
How are the characters intenting to resolve the plot?
What are the hurdles,the obstacles that cause the plot?
These points don't have to be described in that order.
Now the more rigid method. It is a template:
In a (SETTING), (YOUR PROTAGONIST) has a (CONFLICT) because (ANTAGONIST or SOURCE OF CONFLICT), now they have to try to archive (GOAL) despite/with the help of (MYSTERY ELEMENT).
To be clear, the sentence parts around the capslock can be rewritten. The elements can be reordered like you need it.
Like I said, this template may not work with all plots. But for most, this should be a good start to have something.
Better than "I suck at summaries, read to find out!", which will be ignored. No one is gonna give it a read to find out. If you can't write a summary, what makes the reader think you can write a whole story?
YOU ARE READING
Absolute Fanfiction Writing Advice
FanfictionI wrote and read Fanfiction for five years. In these five years, I learned many things. But these is still a lot to learn for me. To celebrate my five year anniversary, I want to collect said knowledge. While not all is stuff I learned over the last...
