This is number 125 in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
“WHAT IF YOUR WHOLE LIFE was condensed into a single year and everything important in it happened that year? For fifty years, Lowell has lived in the memories of his life in 1979. As the song goes, ‘I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a king.’ And Lowell was all those things in just one year! These are his memories of that one incredible year.”
The most important thing an author writes to promote his or her work is the blurb. The earlier you start working on it, the more useful it will be. It should fully encapsulate exactly what the story is while piquing the interest of the reader to open the book. It should also inspire you to write the work! When you read your blurb, you should clap your hands together and say, “I can’t wait to write this!”
If it doesn’t inspire you to write it, it’s not likely to inspire a reader to read it.
In 2015, when I decided to write a story in the ‘Damsels in Distress’ universe, I first read all the stories I could find that were set in that universe. The heroes were overwhelmingly former military men, trained and experienced in combat and survival. They’d been through war and were upright men with honorable character. Much like most of the retired servicemen I have known.
But I am not ex-military. Writing about characters in the military and their experiences is not in my ‘wheelhouse,’ as my dental hygienist put it this week. I had to consider what other things went into the making of a hero and when I came up with a theatre student who saves the lives of his niece and sister-in-law, but is crippled by the act, I knew I had a hero. I went to work on describing him in the blurb for Sleight of Hand.
Crippled while saving his niece and sister-in-law from a drunk driver, Lincoln has struggled five years to 'never give up' at their encouragement. When his friend and magic tutor Seth is suddenly killed on Chaos, though, Lincoln is forced to consider that the stories his mentor told him were more than a LARP. But what kind of hero could a guy in a wheelchair become?
And, indeed, when I came up with this blurb, I couldn’t wait to start writing the story. It’s short as compared to most of my novels. Just eight chapters. But in it, Lincoln gets to Crossroads where his paralysis is healed and he learns to become a different kind of hero, using his magic tricks and theatrics to rescue the damsels in distress.
Sleight of Hand and the entire Hero Lincoln Trilogy are available in eBook from ZBookStore, and as a single volume paperback at online retailers.
There are some key things to remember when writing your blurb. First is to identify who your story’s protagonist is and what type of person he or she is. Then put the protagonist in the key conflict of the story—what does he have to do or overcome? And finally, how did the protagonist get in this predicament?
Many blurbs also include how the protagonist completes his goal, but that is not as necessary as the other three ingredients. Later, however, that will become critical.
Brian was the geekiest shrimp in his class—frequent target of neighborhood and school bullies. But his next-door neighbor, “Heaven,” was watching over him, keeping him safe and protected—until the day Brian became the protector. Brian Frost, would-be chemist and aspiring cook, loyal enough to his friends that they become fiercely loyal to him. All because Heaven told them a fairy tale.
First, who is the protagonist—the person the story is about? Brian, a little geek who is often picked on. What does Brian have to overcome? He has to change from a weak person who is being protected to a person strong enough to protect others. How did it all happen? Heaven, a protector, told a story to Brian’s friends that brought them closer to Brian.
This blurb is 388 characters long. Most of the places you will use a blurb have a character limit. It may vary, but the most prevalent is 400 characters. Use as many of them as you can, but only include essential information. Don’t try to tell the whole story in the blurb. Get those details out that will inspire you to write the story and will sell people on reading what you’ve written.
Go to the story links page at Stories Online. Read the blurbs for the stories posted today. Some are extremely short. Some come close to the full 400-character limit. But which are the ones that make you think you’d like to read them (or write them)? Look at what turns you off of other books.
Of course, your personal interests will affect your interest in the story as well. The author can’t do anything about that. In fact, I want the blurb to warn you away from my story as well as attract you to it.
Part of the motivation for this series of posts was an email I received from ‘Johnny’ who pointed out the number of blurbs that contained poor writing. That included poor English, punctuation, spelling, and word-choice. He said, and I agree, that readers are often turned off from reading a story because the blurb is poorly written. I have to agree, but I’m not going to post any of the ‘bad examples’ he forwarded to me.
The blurb should be an example of the best of your writing. I believe the problems with most of the bad examples were the result of being treated as an afterthought. The person posting the story—and this is just as true of people publishing an eBook or paperback through one of the major vendors—seems often to forget they will need a blurb until they are in the process of posting. So, they hurriedly jot something in the text box and move on.
The blurb should not be an afterthought!
It should be planned, written, and edited in advance. Don’t start posting a story until you have given thought to the blurb. (I believe you shouldn’t start writing the story until you have given thought to the blurb.)
Write your blurb with the care of a Madison Avenue advertising exec intending to sell a million copies. Those sales will all be based on this 400-character blurb.
Of course, the blurb is not the only tool you have to sell your story. Most distribution sites for your eBook or paperback also include the opportunity to give a longer description. We’ll talk about the description and synopsis next week.