What should I write in the Description?

AbstractCrown

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A few days ago, I started thinking about a story to write and I'm currently in the process of fleshing the story out and thought to come out with a description for my series.
Sadly, nothing comes to my mind. so help?
 

MrTiemos

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It varies greatly depending on the general idea of your story, but some standard/basic ideas would generally involve depicting the plot in a manner that makes people understand what it’s about but also curious as to what happens in the story.

My personal favorite synopsis/description comes from Katahane no Riku (can be read at Novel Updates)
 

Arexio

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Good luck with writing~

As long as you don't do a description like my most recent story, you'll be good. :blob_okay:
 

FriendlyDragon

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Your synopsis is not a summary. Remember that. It's merely a hook to get your readers to become interested in the actual story. It's the first thing a potential reader sees and reads from you. So make it maybe a little mysterious or interesting but don't give out the entire plot. Give them an inkling of what is to come.
 

jinxs2011

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Your synopsis is not a summary. Remember that. It's merely a hook to get your readers to become interested in the actual story. It's the first thing a potential reader sees and reads from you. So make it maybe a little mysterious or interesting but don't give out the entire plot. Give them an inkling of what is to come.
What they said.
My less successful story, I've edited the synopsis a half dozen times and i'm still not happy with it. My more successful one, I don't think I've ever edited it. Literally the only thing it says about the story is that it's about someone who reincarnated as a fork. That's it. and it seems to work :blob_neutral:.

But anyway, your synopsis, while it may or may not convey information about the story itself, I think should be written to have the same or similar style to the story itself. If it's all about adventure, you may not want to reference actual events or places in the story, but you could describe mountains that pierce the sky, sweeping landscapes and carpets of soft snow that conceal fields of flowers. If it's action, you may not mention any characters, but if you can capture the feeling of a prideful warrior clashing against a raging berserker, you have my attention.

I suppose at its base, the goal is to instill certain emotions in the reader. For an adventure book, it's wonder and awe; action is excitement and adreneline; horror is fear; mystery is curiosity; comedy you're trying to make them laugh, and so on.
 

Pistachio

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A few days ago, I started thinking about a story to write and I'm currently in the process of fleshing the story out and thought to come out with a description for my series.
Sadly, nothing comes to my mind. so help?

What others said are worthy of taking note of, just sharing how I made mine. It only consists of two parts:

1) The “plot” that had triggered everything. It’s that moment when you thought, “what if?” Don’t put the twists, just the surface idea (and that should be very twisty indeed to catch your attention to the point of writing it)

2) The “promise”. It’s the part where you put in vague words the events of your story. Even if you’re fleshing out, you must still have an inkling of how it should be, so base your 2nd part in the “direction of the journey”.

As an example, ahem ahem, I’ll put my synopsis here as reference:

The Cannon Fodders Sect

OP body.
Simple mind.
Normal transmigrator.

Whichever way you look at it, aren't these a recipe for disaster? Fan Shuangxi did not expect she will transmigrate one day, even more so in a novel series she heard but never read. What’s more tragic is it’s a BL universe! Lah! As a woman who transmigrated wouldn’t that mean she’s going to be a cannon fodder?!

Granny: Do not worry, my lady. You can still return home
Shuangxi: Please return me home ಥ﹏ಥ
Granny: There is one tiny condition
Shuangxi: Tell me, I’ll do it!
Granny: You have to first give birth to the young heir of the clan
Shuangxi: ...
Shuangxi: (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

With neither cold or crafty ideas nor godly skills in medicine and business, this average heroine will have to strive hard to survive in a world where beautiful men are paired with beautiful men and women who get in the way are eliminated!



Hope that helps and don’t give up!
 

CupcakeNinja

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A few days ago, I started thinking about a story to write and I'm currently in the process of fleshing the story out and thought to come out with a description for my series.
Sadly, nothing comes to my mind. so help?
Tell me what the story is about-in detail please, like character names, what they doing, what situation they gonna have to go theough--and I'll offer a suggestion. We can't help you if we know nothing about the story. But i feel I'm pretty good at making an interesting, colorful synopsis.
 

AbstractCrown

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....

As an example, ahem ahem, I’ll put my synopsis here as reference:

The Cannon Fodders Sect
....
Hope that helps and don’t give up!
Thanks!
I'm indeed still fleshing out and have a direction, I'll try to put a good description for my series and if I find it unsatisfactory later I'll just rewrite it.
you're ad is a bit shameless but it works. need some distraction from writing my own story y'know.
 

wolvelyn

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Personally, as a reader I prefer to read stories that have short descriptions and somewhat cliffhanger-ish

For example (this is only nonsense ok):

Tony is an ugly chap
All he ever wanted was a nose job
But during the surgery process, something bizarre happened...
He shouldn't have done it


Meh, thats the only example i can think about rn hahaha...
Why don't you look at the descriptions of your favorite novels?
I mean...to be a writer you have to be a reader first....so try to find descriptions that attracts you....
 

binarysoap

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Different people want different things in the description.

Personally, I actually prefer it if there is a summary so I know what I am getting into. It's totally fine to include hooks or have the tone of the description mimic that of the actual story, but I still want a summary in the end. Doesn't need to be a full blown summary, but something like "This story is about a young man being summoned as a hero to fight the demon king, only for his friends to back-stab him, forcing him to side with the demon king to get his revenge."

Also, don't make your description too long, because no one wants to read a chapter in the description.
 

IvyVeritas

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Probably the best way to think about writing a description is to go through your bookshelf or your kindle and read all the descriptions you can find of professionally published novels, and model your description after those. If you don't have any published novels, look through the descriptions of them on Amazon. Blurbs on published novels are written by marketing experts--the people who know what really works to draw someone's attention.
 

jinxs2011

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Probably the best way to think about writing a description is to go through your bookshelf or your kindle and read all the descriptions you can find of professionally published novels, and model your description after those. If you don't have any published novels, look through the descriptions of them on Amazon. Blurbs on published novels are written by marketing experts--the people who know what really works to draw someone's attention.
What he said. A good way to figure out most things in regards to writing is to read a bunch of books that you like and pay attention to how they do it.
 
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