Imagine you are in a bookstore; any bookstore will do. Now, imagine you see a book on a display table. It has the most beautiful title to ever roll off your tongue, cover-art that seems to have been drawn by the goddess of the arts herself, and you find yourself drawn to it because, at first glance, it promises to be the best book you’ve ever read. You pick it up; it is the perfect weight, the perfect size, and with reverence and held breath you flip it over to read the summary on the back—
—but it doesn’t have one.
The back of the most perfect book in the world… is blank.
You stare at the empty cover in disbelief. How could this be? You desperately want to know if this book contains something you’ll be interested in reading; you desperately want to know if investing your time and energy into this book is a good idea. Where is the information that will tell you these things? Feeling your heart begin to pound, you open the book to the inside cover, hoping that the book’s summary is hiding there.
Alas, the inside flap is also blank.
You begin to panic. This book feels excellent. You want it to be good so badly you can taste it. You want to know if it’s a total waste of time before you start reading it; having to take the book back to the store would be a total hassle. With shaking hands you flip to the back inside cover, praying and hoping that—
Oh, shit.
All it says is “plz read & review”.
(Although the above might be a bit of an exaggeration, that’s what I feel when I see a badly written summary—or, even worse, a fic with no real summary at all. I’ve written a list of some of the things I keep in mind when writing summaries for my stories on fanfiction.net. I've seen a lot of violations of my personal code lately, so I figured someone, somewhere might find this helpful.)
The Basics:
1. A summary should be used to tell the readers what your story is about. Giving part of the basic plot and showing what characters are featured are good ways to draw readers into a story.
2. However, you shouldn’t give away too much for fear of losing the story’s mystery. Tell us the basic conflict, but never the resolution.
3. Story tags that tell general information about the story are good ideas: AU, OC, OOC, crackfic, pairings, etc. They don’t take up much space, either! However, most of your summary should be dedicated to an actual sentence or two, so if there’s no room for the tags, don’t sweat it too much.
4. Try to make your summary as unique and attention-grabbing as possible! It’s there to attract readers, so try to make it stand out.
Common Sense:
1. Make sure your summary is spelled and punctuated correctly, and make sure your sentences are grammatically correct. A summary is the first thing a reader sees when they look at your work, so if your summary is so badly written that it’s almost incomprehensible, readers will likely skip over your work entirely because they’ll assume your story is likewise unreadable.
2. Watch out for typos! Your summary is only a few sentences long, so if you leave a typo in such a short, easy-to-edit passage, it makes you look sloppy or uncaring. This is also applicable to titles; nothing says “I don’t take the time to proofread” like a misspelled title.
3. Avoid chatspeak! It’s terribly unprofessional!
What Not To Say:
1. Don’t say things like “I suck at summaries” in your summary. If you can’t handle the task of writing a simple summary, it does not bode well for the rest of your writing. A first impression is everything!
2. Don’t say “the story is better than it sounds”. Your job is to make it sound interesting, so don’t waste space and time on defending yourself when you could be using it to improve your summary.
3. Don’t say things like “If you don’t review I will never update again” in your summary. You come across as whiny and juvenile and will turn off many readers by acting in such a manner.
4. Don’t waste your summary space on talking about why you’re writing the story, or what your personal feelings on it are. People want to hear about the story itself so they can figure out whether or not they want to read it. There’s room to talk about other things in an author’s note.
5. Don't say things like "don't like, don't read" or "no flames". You're only inviting people to flame you, and acting defensive before a reader even has time to judge your story doesn't reflect well on you. Be proud of your story; so what if other people might not agree? Don't give them the satisfaction of getting to you!
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