story summaries

I know summaries are not simples. But. How do people expect a couple of lines of random poetry to make people want to read their fic? Are they just relying on pairings and tags? I am not that desperate. Yet. I do not need to read an unfinished WIP with only italicised quote looking lines in the summary field just because it has interesting people in the / (even if I have been awake all night and am GRUMPY). Further, the tag field is for SEARCHABLE TAGS, as in single words or possibly pairs of words if you really need them, ones that the fic will have in common with others of its ilk. If you have entire *rudeword* sentences in there you do not in fact have a tag, you have author's notes. Put them in the Notes field! Use tags to be clicked upon to group your work with others. Using them for your notes? Serves the useful function of waving a great big Does Not Play By My Rules flag, and lets me skip the things. (My Rules do not rule the internet, but the lack of abiding by them turns vague boredom into tooth grinding annoyance.) (And, PS, a drabble is ONE HUNDRED WORDS, HOW IS THIS DIFFICULT, OMG SERIOUSLY.) (... very grumpy.)

The summary field is the back of the book. It's the place you put the hook. You want people to read it. You do not want a quote, even pulled from your own story, unless it contains the story hook and enough of a condensed version of the story to give people some kind of clue.

What you do want is to say who the main people are (tags sometimes being used for a full cast list, when story focuses on A and B), what challenge they're facing this time (robots, supervillains, emotional constipation complicated by robots and supervillains), and what kind of shenanigans they'll get through before the end of the story (give us a genre hint at least, your comedy may not be what your reader is looking for today, or it might be the last thing between them and the pit. Advertise!) Only give away the ending if you particularly want to, but really, we're mostly reading genre romance, the ending is our favourite pairing smooching, we don't much mind what else as long as that works out. If that ISN'T the ending, signal pretty loud. We have only the clues you give us.

Players, problems, genre, hook. In as few sentences as possible.
Because fandom alone isn't going to get readers in the door.

(though accurately labelling fandom is going to help keep those readers for more than a paragraph or three. Marking Avengers fic movieverse and then only using comics canon does not a happy reader make.)

Also? It really, really helps if people can remember, from your summary, which of a couple thousand very similar / stories they have read recently your one is.





In other news I am starting to resent the words 'Latest Version'. Clearly the world should write more quickly.
Or I should relearn how to resist WIPs.

I also look forward to AO3 searches working properly again. At some point. Because that would be nice.