Ah, The Classic "I'm Bad at Summaries" Excuse ...

[jedibuttercup]

I swear, I cringe every time I see that line in a fanfic summary. NEXT!

But ... I'm having that problem myself, at the moment. The closer I get to the end of Never Look Back, the more I realize how utterly uninformative the story summary, and indeed the Lesser Men Saga series summary, is:

"Then Shall The Chosen Make Their Choices": who ever said 'no rest for the wicked' had it all backwards.

I just have no real idea how else to describe that long-in-the-finishing byzantine canon-divergent tropemonster. Those few of you who still follow it - how would you describe the story? I swear I'll credit you for the description; I just want to have something more interesting there to lure in the never-read-WIPs folks when I finally wrap the thing! *pleading eyes*

Comments

[jaq-of-spades.livejournal.com]

I'm not familiar with the story, but what I usually do when I'm having trouble with a summary is forget trying to summarise it. I just pluck out a line or short para that I really like, or I think says something significant, and go with that, sometimes with a line of description as well. My automatic response to "I'm no good at summaries" is "how do I know you can actually write then?" and a good quote from the story tends to avert that crisis ;)

[jedibuttercup]

Heh; the current summary actually is a quote - a couple of them. I use that tactic myself quite frequently.

The problem with NLB is that it's a WIP now 65,000 words or so in size, three quarters of the way done, being told from seventeen points of view (one per chapter; there'll be two chapters per POV when it's done.) And it's the last story (twelfth overall) in a series currently running upwards of 190,000 words in total. Like I said, a byzantine tropemonster. :)

I guess I'll just have to do another reread to see if I can find a particularly apt pull quote before the next time I update ... *sigh*

[kerravonsen]

My automatic response to "I'm no good at summaries" is "how do I know you can actually write then?"

Yes, exactly!

[avamclean.livejournal.com]

Summaries and titles—the bane of any writer’s existence.

[beatrice_otter]

OMG, yes. Like, summaries aren't that bad for me (although I don't have any idea what to do for this behemoth) but titles ...

[jedibuttercup]

I spend an inordinate amount of time googling song lyrics that have caught my ear and poems I vaguely remember from my college Poetry course and popular quotes and so on; sometimes titles (particularly in August) take me longer to come up with than the fic itself. :)

[beatrice_otter]

Ahahahaha. Yes. Going to internet poetry archives and searching on theme is a large part of my title process, too.