Writing Tips

The Summary / Blurb / Query Must be Concise

After the pitch comes the summary / blurb / query.  These three are practically the same thing but can be separated for different purposes (depending on who's talking about them).  If you write a good enough query, publishers might use that on the book's jacket cover.  Or, if you're not into traditional publishing, it's likely you'll hook a lot of new customers online or in person after a short read.  For ideas, read the backs of a few printed books.  You'll always find professional quality blurbs there--but be sure to read the ones in your genre more often!  The jacket covers of works that are in your genre will help you to figure out how to write that type.

Just like the pitch, the summary / blurb / query reveals several elements.

What the Summary / blurb / query should contain:

✏️ Who is the main character?

✏️ What is the major conflict?

✏️ What / who are the obstacle(s)?

✏️ Show a theme – a theme helps focus the book and ensures it has deeper impact.

✏️ Provoke Dramatic Questions - A Dramatic Question gives the story a purpose and drives excitement.  It gives the reader the need to open the book and turn pages.  All good books answer the main dramatic question within their pages, even if it is in a way that the audience does not expect.

✏️ Who is the villain?

✏️ What does the villain (or antagonist) want? / How does he try to stop the hero (or protagonist)?

✏️ Reveal character growth - Sometimes you may add in something to reveal the need for character growth.

Here are some of my main rules for writing a good summary / blurb / query: Three short paragraphs at most.  Four is pushing it, though you MIGHT get away with it.  You can have less, but very rarely more.  Do not write the book's About summary in long, uninterrupted paragraphs.  This is boring, and it confuses the eyes and stresses out the readers. Indie authors can get away with a few more, but if this is a query you're sending in to a publisher, just remember how many hundreds or thousands of submissions they comb through every month. Long reading that doesn't grab them earns a query the Rejection Pile. The Slush Pile. The Book Went There To Die Pile.

It is difficult to balance telling too much, info dumping, and not telling enough.  It is also difficult to stay focused, especially in an 8-POV book with at least 7 major plots and subplots, a cast of 200 characters, and about 740 pages in completed form. But it truly can be done, I promise. It takes practice, and others' opinions and knowledge.

One way to cut words is to look for tautologies, or repetitions.   Another is to avoid explaining things away; instead, try to sum up what you are saying with concise words, like replacing "some things angered Mike easily, and he would yell and throw things and ..." with something shorter than sums it up better, "Mike was temperamental".  Also, tactically underplaying things has a very powerful effect on a scene.

Here is an example jacket blurb for The Violet Curse. As an Indie book, pushing to 4 paragraphs was okay. But two extra paragraphs were added afterward which had both a broadening effect (loses focus), and manages to let the reader know there is a lot going on in the book. Those last two paragraphs could have been cut. But the urge to keep going is very strong. It takes a lot of experience to restrain yourself if you're an overwriter, just as it is extremely difficult to add enough if you're an underwriter. Also take note of the spacing on the back, and the room left for the bar code, author image, and other info.