{"id":119,"date":"2018-02-10T21:27:48","date_gmt":"2018-02-10T21:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/?p=119"},"modified":"2018-02-10T21:27:48","modified_gmt":"2018-02-10T21:27:48","slug":"blurb-me-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2018\/02\/10\/blurb-me-baby\/","title":{"rendered":"Blurb me, baby!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been told I have some facility with writing blurbs<\/a>.\u00a0 However, since mine tend to run long, perhaps I can only help others.\u00a0 You can judge for yourself by clicking on the titles on the left-hand side of my home page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When I’ve helped people with their blurbs and synopsis, what I’ve found that seems to work the best is for them to get angry.\u00a0 Yup, get pissed.\u00a0 I’ve back-and-forthed with a couple of authors, trying to help them, and they get more and more frustrated because I don’t ‘get it.’\u00a0 Finally, they’ll rattle off a series of one or two sentence bullet points summarizing their story.\u00a0 Guess what?\u00a0 That summary is exactly what needs to be in the blurb and synopsis!<\/p>\n

By the by, though there are huge overlaps, there is a distinct difference between a blurb and a synopsis.\u00a0 The blurb is the teaser that goes on the back of the book, that’s supposed to incentivize the reader to purchase the book.\u00a0 The synopsis is to tell the agent\/publisher\/bookseller what the story is about, so they can judge if yours is new\/interesting\/different enough to want to represent\/carry.\u00a0 Blurbs NEVER contain ending spoilers, synopses (the plural of synopsis, according to dictionary.com via Google) ALWAYS contain spoilers.\u00a0 Snyopses tend to run longer than blurbs, but there can be a lot of variety, as it depends on the audience.\u00a0 Blurbs generally should run 100-150 words and this really is a case where less is more.\u00a0 Synopses are expected to run between 500-800 words.<\/p>\n

The concepts behind writing your blurb and synopsis are the same, just blurbs get fewer words and don’t spoil the ending, while synopses get more words and spoil the ending.\u00a0 You can use the exact same mental process.<\/p>\n

You need to introduce your main character, but if you have more than one it can get tricky as too many characters will confuse readers.<\/p>\n

You need to outline the stakes.\u00a0 What’s motivating the character to accomplish great things.\u00a0 Their main goal.<\/p>\n

Finally, you need to list the obstacles keeping the character from achieving that goal.<\/p>\n

Simple, eh?\u00a0 Of course not. You’ve lovingly devoted months, if not years, to your epic story, how can you possibly trim all that beauty down to a few sentences, yet still be interesting, entertaining and unique?\u00a0 This is why I now write backwards<\/a>.\u00a0 Here, I’m assuming you’ve already written your novel and are stuck with trying to create an engaging blurb and synopsis.<\/p>\n

This is why I advocate the ‘get angry’ method of blurb writing.\u00a0 Very quickly, as if communicating with dense old me who simply is not getting your story, list out 4-6 bullet points of why your story is unique, what sets it apart from all the others and why readers should pick yours.\u00a0 Surely you had these reasons floating around in your head when you started writing.\u00a0 I’m positive you didn’t sit down with the idea of writing a clone of some story you’ve already read.\u00a0 You wanted yours to be different somehow.\u00a0 That’s what I’m looking for.<\/p>\n

These bullet points should be your starting point.\u00a0 You still need to introduce your character.\u00a0 Not their backstory!\u00a0 You don’t even need to supply their last name, sex or age, but they need a handle.\u00a0 Don’t clutter your blurb with other names unless they’re critical to the story, and never name a character mentioned only once.\u00a0 Use function names.\u00a0 For example, the wicked witch of the West doesn’t need a name unless she shows up more than once (in the blurb or synopsis, of course).<\/p>\n

Never do an info dump in your blurb or synopsis.\u00a0 Exactly like writing your novel, only supply information when it’s necessary to move the plot forward.\u00a0 And not a moment sooner.\u00a0 Trust your readers. Trust that they care enough to remember something is missing.<\/p>\n

Get those stakes in there, we need to know why the character is in the story.\u00a0 Then put in the obstacles.\u00a0 If it’s effortless for the character to achieve their goals, then you pretty much don’t have any story.\u00a0 How long does it take for someone to describe their idyllic vacation, where all the food was great, no mosquitoes, their significant others got along, etc.?\u00a0 About twenty seconds, right?\u00a0 But those nightmare vacations, those are the ones people want to hear about.\u00a0 The worst to experience have the best stories, right?\u00a0 If your character’s experiences were like the idyllic vacation, you might not have a novel anyone will want to read.<\/p>\n

Once you have all that raw material, now comes the ‘fun’ part: condensing it to 100-150 words.\u00a0 Don’t obsess with getting it under 150 words, but if you have 350+ you have too much.\u00a0 Each word needs to convey excitement to the reader, there can be nothing extraneous.\u00a0 If brevity is not your strong suit, then you might want to ask for help, once you’ve got all the critical information from the above exercises.\u00a0 Goodreads has a place<\/a>; I’m sure there are others on the ‘net.<\/p>\n

What about the synopsis, you ask.\u00a0 Well, you use the exact same raw material, but you spoil the ending.\u00a0 A good synopsis will engage the reader (generally the agent and\/or publisher and sometimes the bookseller if you make it that far through the process), but they understand those are difficult to write.\u00a0 They’ll give you a little slack. But you get no slack for your blurb.\u00a0 Sure, word of mouth is great, and if you’re lucky enough to get that, you’re off to the races. But in the beginning, you have to convince people with your blurb.\u00a0 When you’re looking at books, how long to you give each one?\u00a0 Ten seconds?\u00a0 Five?\u00a0 Your blurb has to grab the reader that fast and keep them interested enough to want to read the rest, which has to be interesting enough to make them want to take it home.\u00a0 If you can write your synopsis the same way, then you’re grabbing the agent\/publisher (bookseller) the same way as you would the actual reader.<\/p>\n

Having said all that, screening out readers who won’t like your story is just as important as teasing the interested ones.\u00a0 I learned that the hard way with my first<\/a>.\u00a0 I mistakenly thought of it as a romance (yes, it is a love story, but it violates more romance tropes than it satisfies) and wrote the blurb to attract those readers.\u00a0 Boy did I have some pissed off readers!\u00a0 Fortunately, these were beta readers, not paying customers, so no one star reviews reviling my story.<\/p>\n

If you go with my ‘get angry’ process, you should have all the necessary raw material for a compelling blurb and synopsis.\u00a0 Polish to perfection.\u00a0 If you find you’ve got too many words, ask for some help.\u00a0 Sometimes we fall so in love with our prose we can’t see how little information we’re conveying.\u00a0 Blurbs and synopses are a true case where less is more.<\/p>\n

A note on white space.\u00a0 I’ve read in many places, and noted it myself reading other people’s blurbs, that long paragraphs are hard to read.\u00a0 For your blurb in particular, you want your paragraphs to be no more than 2-3 sentences, 4 at the most.\u00a0 And short punchy sentences!\u00a0 The additional whitespace lets the reader digest smaller bits at a time and lets them read more, since they’re only committing to a couple more sentences.\u00a0 The more they read, the more likely they are to buy the book.\u00a0 Make it as easy as possible for them to read by having short, interesting, informative sentences.<\/p>\n

Good luck!\u00a0 Don’t despair if you struggle; I spent more time on my blurb than I did on my first draft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been told I have some facility with writing blurbs.\u00a0 However, since mine tend to run long, perhaps I can only help others.\u00a0 You can judge for yourself by clicking on the titles on the left-hand side of my home page. When I’ve helped people with their blurbs and synopsis, what I’ve found that seems … Continue reading “Blurb me, baby!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120,"href":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions\/120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keithalanwriter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}