[ SECRET POST #3120 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3120 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 047 secrets from Secret Submission Post #446.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Things you wish fanfic authors would/wouldn't do

[(Anonymous)]

What makes a decent summary?

Re: Things you wish fanfic authors would/wouldn't do

[(Anonymous)]

I would say at minimum:

* who's in this fic
* general sense of the plot and what genre it is
* a "hook" that shows me why I need to read THIS fic vs. some other fic

Example:

It's twenty years after Hogwarts and Hermione is on a much needed sabbatical to research her new book. But the wild green hills of Scotland hold many secrets, and one of them is the legend of Wytchford Wood. It is said that on Midsummer's night, ghosts and spirits emerge from the cavern by the old spring to drink of its sacred waters. Hermione is determined to uncover the truth, but will she discover the legend is a tale for children, or will she find herself haunted by a shade from her own past?

Re: Things you wish fanfic authors would/wouldn't do

[(Anonymous)]

We're going to have to agree to disagree, because I hate "hooks" in summaries, and I especially hate summaries that have rhetorical questions in them. I think this might be part of how fandom is well-chosen tags is enough.

Re: Things you wish fanfic authors would/wouldn't do

[(Anonymous)]

A hook is merely something that catches a person's interest. If there's nothing that catches my interest in the summary, I'm not going to read the fic.

Re: Things you wish fanfic authors would/wouldn't do

[(Anonymous)]

This is why I think teaching the concept of a "hook" is bullshit. It encourages people to put gimmicky advert-speak in their writing in the false belief that that's how to correctly catch readers' interest. Actually, what catches somebody's interest is going to be, yknow, content. I have never read a fic because somebody put a hokey rhetorical question in the summary to "hook" me in. I have, however, read them because the summary hinted at some fuckery that appealed to me.

Re: Things you wish fanfic authors would/wouldn't do

[(Anonymous)]

You are not really grasping what a hook is. A hokey rhetorical question could qualify as a type of hook, but not all hooks are hokey rhetorical questions. You're basically complaining about how horrible all fruits are because you don't like bananas.

The hint in the plot summary about some fuckery that interested you? That's the hook.

Re: Things you wish fanfic authors would/wouldn't do

[(Anonymous)]

I'd like that kind of thing better if the answer were ever, EVER "Nope, just a tale for children." C'mon, don't phrase it as a question if it's not a question, people.

Re: Things you wish fanfic authors would/wouldn't do

[cloud_riven]

Idk it probably depends on what someone is looking for. It could be a summary akin to those you would find at the back of a novel, a blatant list of everything that will happen, like a sorta trailer, or maybe even some kind of word salad. Like I said, it's probably more of a preferential thing. Not to say that there aren't ways to fuck it all up and make an awful summary.

For me, I look for something in it that tells me what the story is about. It doesn't have to be literal and, but it's the idea/premise about it, that ends up hooking me in. A person who recs a fic to me can tell me why I should read. On my own, going trough archives, I want the summary to tell and hint to me about it.

Re: Things you wish fanfic authors would/wouldn't do

[(Anonymous)]

I think it depends a LOT on the kind of fic you're dealing with. Huge plotty AU? Summary should be fairly comprehensive, setting up the terms of the canon divergence, indicating which characters are broadly involved, potentially hinting at ships if that's going to be a big part. Hurt/comfort one-shot? Sometimes the best summary is a quote from the beginning or the middle of the action. PWP? Just tell us who fucks who and how: pithily if you like, plainly if you can't be arsed.

Basically, what makes a good summary depends on the purpose of the fic (and, by extension, the general purpose of readers who might be looking for your fic). In my experience, people complaining about bad summaries tend to be people looking for plotty fic.

Re: Things you wish fanfic authors would/wouldn't do

[(Anonymous)]

Can your summary be recited by a gravelly voiced man in the style of an 80s movie trailer and sound coherent? If yes, then good summary. If no, try again.