How To Write An Alex Rider Fanfiction

How To Write A Catchy Summary

Summaries are one of the most important parts of your story. They are the cover of your work; they allow readers to get a glimpse of what your work is about, what your writing style is like and overall if they are intrigued by your story and want to read it. 

This is where most writers fall short. Even the best authors I have ever read on both fanfiction.net and wattpad often fall short in summaries. Either it's they fail to intrigue their reader, or they have a lot of errors in their summary, giving their reader's a wrong impression about them and their story. 

Think about it. You're a reader on fanfiction.net and wattpad. You want to find a good story to read, but there are so many! You can't open up every story and read a little bit of it. No, that would take forever. Instead, you read the summaries. If you like something the story has to offer, you will read it. If you don't, then you will move on. Want another example? A good one is youtube. The ads they show depend on whether or not I find them interesting, intriguing, or catchy. My personal favourites are the Grammarly ads, and also the Purple Mattress ads. So convincing that I choose to watch the entire commercial rather than skip them! 

In the same way, summaries should lure your readers in. Here are the summaries of my own stories on fanfiction.net: 

Alex Is In The Hospital: Excerpt: He woke up in a cell with a small lump underneath the skin of his forearm. Thrown back into the word of espionage once again, the stakes have been raised. MI6 has lost contact with him. In a secluded hospital seemingly in the middle of nowhere, Alex is on his own. A two-month rest period gone wrong, he is forced to play this dangerous cat and mouse game himself.

Government Issue Blackmail: Kidnapped and smuggled back into Britain, it appears that Blunt has managed to weasel his way back into MI6. Good news for him, but bad news for a certain Alex Rider...When Blunt tries to blackmail Alex into working for MI6 again, Alex resists. Will he be forced back into the world of espionage, or will he have gotten older, smarter, and if possible, even more sarcastic?

The Biography of an Assassin and The Biography of a Spy: Cold amber eyes met dark brown eyes. He shivered. He had seen those eyes before. Eyes only on one person, and he was supposed to be dead. " Jamuti Kathmar Gregorovich." The girl stuck out her hand, confirming his worst suspicions. He took it. " Alexander John Rider. Nice to meet you." Too young to kill. Too young to die. How...fortunate. And sadistic at the same time. 

Intrigued? That's how a summary should look like! Or those are my examples, anyway. In this chapter, I'll break down every part of writing a summary. Hopefully, by the end of this chapter, I have helped you write a catchy summary. :) 

Right. So the first thing to do is to re-read your story and sum up the main points. What is your story about? When I write a summary, I find it helpful to write down what makes my story different from others. What is so unique about my story? A unique plot line? A new character (like in The Biography of an Assassin and The Biography of a Spy). 

Include that in your summary. For example, let's say that K-Unit is meeting Alex Rider for the first time in years (I know this plotline has already been used, but it's only an example). If I were planning this out, I could write-

-K Unit meeting Alex again. 

-Haven't seen him in ______years. 

-Alex has been on more missions. 

Okay, that's a good start! We can work with this.Remember, those are just some points to get started. The real summary is going to be much longer and complex than these points. 

Now that you've sketched your summary, we have to do what I call a rough string up. You write out the summary but its a rough copy. Stringing together the plot points listed above, it would look something like this-

K-Unit is in London for a brief amount of downtime after a mission. Who do they expect to see but their youngest, surprise fifth member Cub? They are shocked by how he looks. Taller, more lean...gaunter. Alex refuses to see them, but they slowly string together the story from Ben...Alex is an MI6 agent and been so for quite some time. Not only that, but he's good at it...

Not bad, but a definite improvement. Word count is important. On fanfiction.net, your only allowed a certain amount of characters. Harder, basically, but more to the point. Now, I'm going to cut down the summary a little bit and polish it for what I called a polished string up. It would look something like this: 

" Cub?" 

" Wolf?" The boy's eyes widened as he crumpled up his paper cup and tossed it in the trash. Around Wolf, the other three members of K-Unit poked their heads to stare at the boy in front of them. 

Back in London for downtime, who does K-Unit expect but to see their very own Cub? Although Cub refuses to talk about himself, K-Unit notices the change. In four short years, Cub has gotten taller, stronger, but more...gaunt. Through Ben, they hear the full story...

And now the final-string up.: 

" Cub?" 

" Wolf?" 

K-Unit is in London for downtime. Who do they expect to see but their very own Cub, the fifth and unofficial member of their unit? Although he refuses to talk, Ben Daniels aka Fox reveals the full story to the whole pity story, how Alex has been on missions and how it's destroyed him. Literally. 

See how we went through the process? I'll sum it up-Point, rough string up, polished string up, and final string up. We went from three bullet points to a full roughly eighty-word summary. And that's pretty much all there is to write a summary!

Now, a few precautions. 

Some people don't like certain types of fanfictions or are simply too young to read it. Whatever the reason may be, it is your job as a writer to warn your readers. Some warnings to include may be but are not limited to: 

-Gay/lesbian fanfictions

-Lemons (fanfictions with sexual themes or scenes in it.) Also PWP. (Porn without plot.) 

-Religous or political fanfiction. 

-AU (Alternative Universe). I don't know why, but some people just don't like it. 

-OOC, or out of character. Better to warn your readers then have them tear down your story with complaints. 

- Lemon: Sexual content, explicit. 

-Lime: Sexual content, non-explicit. 

-OC: Original character. Optional warning, but I would recommend it anyways. 

-Non-consensual/Non-con: VERY IMPORTANT to include, especially for younger readers. Like I said, Alex Rider isn't exactly the most 'innocent' of genres, so include this warning. 

-Abuse: ALSO IMPORTANT. 

-Racial slurs or foul language: In the beginnings of my story, I sometimes like to include the worst swear words the characters will use, just to let reader's get a feel for it. 

-Mpreg/Childbirth stories: Include if a character is giving birth and you plan to write that scene in detail. Include at beginning of the story or in your summary. 

You don't have to include these warnings in your summary. You could include them at the author's note right at the beginning of your story. Also, if a bad scene in your story (abuse or sexual content etc.) is coming up, give your reader's a warning at the end of the last chapter or the beginning of the chapter with the bad content. Its helpful to keep it in all caps or in bold font to grab your reader's attention. 

Comment if you have any questions. 

Until next time!

-Amber