Summaries

[Ice]

Ok, not so much here but a lot of other sites require a summary of the fic. I dont know about the rest of you but I can sit and churn out chapter after chapter of fic without too much hassle but when it comes to writing a summary, they are so awful that Im surprised anyone ever reads anything I write. I usually end up with 2 lines max.... anything more than that and its practically a chapter in itself.

What tips do you all have for writing a good summary that doesn't give too much away but makes the browsing reader stop and take note?

[FineyMcFine]

I haven't given summaries a ton of thought, but if I try to deconstruct it, then I guess I would say that one or two sentences is fine. I try to make the summary more of a teaser for the fic rather than a flat-out summary of what happens. And the central conflict of the fic, I usually try to pose that as a question to pique some interest to make a person want to find out the answer.

[SithLordWiccan]

I usually have an outline of how I want to handle a fic, but I usually don't commit it to word processor, since I've discovered that what I think of at the start of my writing and what eventually comes out on the page aren't always the same thing.

[Hemiola]

Well, this is certainly an interesting topic.

One of the cleverest little booklets ever published is Robert Deaver's "Opera Plots Made Easy". In this opusculum, Deaver set it as his goal to devote just one (1) page to a summary of each the plots of some fifty (50) operas.

Let's take as an example "The Twilight of the Gods", the last of Wagner's "Ring" operas. In performance, the work can take between five and six hours to unfold. Deaver starts out as follows:

"Events leading to the end of the gods and their castle, Valhalla".

That pretty much tells you everything that's going to happen during the opera. He then summarizes the Prologue and each separate act in four tiny paragraphs.

In short, all you need to do is tell people what the story is about. They'll learn the details by reading it!

[Ice]

Well my summaries tend to be basic and often have a posing question, but someone said that my summaries were cr*p.... I dont care so much about that as, at the end of the day, I didnt spend months writing a summary and since I rarely know whats gonna happen in the fic myself, its really hard to give others a clue.

I never have a plot or plan. My fics come from the strangest things. Like the one Im currently working on, I had a mental image of a scene that'd last about 5 seconds but its taken me 31+ chapters to get there.

Anyway, I was just wondering how you all dealt with it, so thanks kittens.