Why Your Story SUCKS | Writer's rants & discussions

Why your blurb sucks

There's nothing quite as lazy as taking a scene from your book and pasting the entire thing in your book's description.

We've all probably read a description something along the lines of, "The alpha's breath fanned my neck as I was pinned against the wall, we stared deeply into each other's eyes. My heart fluttered. 'mAtE!1!!' he growled in a sexy, husky voice that made my core ache."

The amount of times I have read scenes of a girl being pinned against the wall by her borderline sociopathic boyfriend/mate/billionaire with him breathing his stank ass breath on her, especially as a book's description, is quite miserable. Reason 123,565,786,420.75 why I also stay away from romance books.

Or maybe you don't do this, maybe you write "In which {insert character} blah blah blah"/"In a world". Whenever I see a blurb that begins with those two/three words I instantly can see you put little to no effort into your blurb and I'm bored already. I've read blurbs that start with those words so many times and each time they've been flatter than Nebraska.

Or maybe you write "Just read please". If so, you don't deserve to call yourself a writer and I can only assume your writing is equally as empty as your description box.

A blurb is your book's second sales pitch, the first being your cover. The description is the factor that a reader will use to decide if they should pursue your book or swipe to the next. Do you honest to skydaddy believe that a reader will be more interested in your lazily copy-pasted wall scene, "In which", and "pls just read", or a short, but detailed description of the story's characters, setting, conflict, and stakes? 

bUt wRiTiNg dEsCrIpTiOnS iS hArD!1!! For the millionth time, so is almost everything else when you're first trying it, especially in writing. Even I still struggle with writing blurbs, but, just like writing chapters, I take my time with it, edit it, and rewrite it until I think it's good enough.

So, what's your excuse again?

Regardless of whatever bullshit you tell yourself and others as to why you won't write a real description, I'm gonna give you a couple of tips that'll hopefully motivate you to the path of undoubted improvement.

Are you lost baby girl? Well, you're in luck, follow me because class has just begun. ʸᵉˢ ᴵ ʰᵃᵗᵉ ᵐᵉ ᵗᵒᵒ

An old friend of mine who was a big help to my writing would always say, there are four essential elements to a blurb.

Characters, who the hell are you people? Introduce the main characters.

Setting, where are we? Reference your story's environment, does it take place in the year 3000 in a space hotel or is it 1950s New York?

Conflict, what's the tea? Establish the conflict the character(s) face. Are aliens invading the MC's home planet and destroying everything and everyone?

Stakes, WHEN WILL YOU LEARN, THAT YOUR ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES? What's at risk? What're the consequences? Is the MC threatened with X happening if they do Y or Z?

Have that stuff figured out? Good, now that you know what your blurb requires, here are some things you should and shouldn't do when you sit down to start writing it.

Keep it short and direct. A mile-long blurb will be the death of your readers' interest and attention spans. Same with a blurb that beats around the bush.

Stop going on for ages about your book's small town in the woods and how nice the people are and get to the point of why the MC decided to move into a knowingly haunted house.

The suggested length for a blurb is roughly 100-200 words, personally, I think you can go up to 280 or so. Or in other words, about three paragraphs. Any more paragraphs than that and people tend to lose focus.

I will tell you now, usually learning to add details while also keeping it to the point and using intriguing language will take some practice. But like I said earlier, just like anything else you're writing, edit and rewrite that shit to all hell until you're satisfied.

Leave some mystery for the rest of us. Similar to the point above, if you're writing several paragraphs, you're giving away too many details that should be revealed throughout the story.

Even if you keep it short you might be giving away too much. While you need to include information, do not spoil your book's plot by revealing plot twists, major events, etc.

bUT iT's sO iMpOrTaNt!! How does one know when a detail is important or unnecessary? Well, if you can leave it out of your blurb and it reads fine/makes sense with no confusion, it probably isn't anything readers can't learn later on. You don't need to go over the MC's entire backstory when you can just write it throughout the actual book like you're supposed to.

There ain't no point in reading your book if I can learn your entire plot in the description is there?

Also, do not summarize what happens in the first chapter in your blurb. Again, there is no point in us reading it if we already know what happens.

Your blurb should sell your book, not you. What I mean by this is, I am tired of seeing authors mention how amazing and interesting their book is in their descriptions. "A story you'll fall in love with", "An amazing tale of love that will keep you interested and on the edge of your seat." "This story is a rollercoaster of emotions that'll make you laugh, cry, and feel warm and fuzzy." Sorry to break it to you, but no book has ever made me cry and no book has ever made me feel warm and fuzzy. So cut the exaggerated bullshit.

You're not a published author with other successful novels so there's no need to mention how great of a writer you are.

Let readers say how amazing your writing is, you doing it yourself just looks pretty sad. Trust me, it's not making readers click into your book any more than if you didn't boast about yourself, it's making them click less.

Look at professional examples. Looking at examples of blurbs on traditional books helps tremendously. Scroll through some books on sites for published works, go to the library/bookstore and read the descriptions, take notes on how information is given and the wording they use.

And lastly, don't be afraid to ask for honest feedback. Ask other writers for more critical feedback, and ask readers to see what the average person without a writer's vision would think. Heck, feel free to ask me if you want, my Wattpad's been pretty dry lately anyway.

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There isn't any perfect method of writing a blurb. It all depends on your story, and quite honestly I don't give a fuck if a blurb doesn't have the elements I mentioned as long as I find it interesting because all you want is for something that will get people interested.

I've said this before but I don't think there's anything wrong with breaking writing rules, publishers want unique writers too. It's just that the majority of people who do it, don't have enough experience, knowledge, and awareness to do it well and make it work.

But, still, you should follow some of these rules to the best of your ability and keep them in mind, especially if you want to appear more professional.

I've wanted to do this rant for a long time but as I mentioned, I myself struggle with writing descriptions so I've waited and done more research on it. Though I'm already a hypocrite in other ways, besides, being a judgemental bitch to other people's work helps me with my own.