Jul 2022
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onyisart
Jul '22
2

I need help with my series description/details. I want to rewrite it entirely. I don't feel like my current one matches the vibes of my story very well. My series is a sweet and spicy strangers-to-friends-to-lovers story. Romance. Fantasy, Drama.

Here is the new version (which is still a WIP). It's a combo of the current and the old version
[NEW] Pippa is a lonely vampire committed to a lost love. Levi is a lost merman trapped in the past. Thanks to a stolen gift—and a little divine intervention—they are brought together. When new feelings and secrets long buried begin to surface around them, things start getting a little…wet.

I do like the original (kind of) but it just revealed the entire plot of chapter 1. So I began editing and editing...and editing until it became the current version. I literally have 20+ versions of my series description.

[CURRENT] Thanks to a stolen gift and a little divine intervention, fate brings together a vampire and a merman. What will this chance encounter lead towards and why were they brought together?

[ORIGINAL] After ten years away, Pippa is moving back home - single and not looking to mingle. When something precious to her is stolen and thrown into the ocean, she becomes desperate to get it back and takes a dip - meeting a mysterious merman in her search. Entranced by his familiar eyes, Pippa takes the merman home but with him around her life becomes a little less single and a little more...wet

Thoughts? Suggestions? Advice? All appreciated!

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    Jul '22

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    Aug '22
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RobertBMarks
Jul '22

When it comes to doing a blurb, you want something that gives the reader enough information to get a reasonable sense of what they're getting into, but also gives them enough of a hook that they want to find out more. And I went through a similar thing with my blurb. Here's the original version (as I recall) that went up:

For over a century, fictional characters have been falling out of their stories into our world. Some want to go home. Some want a new life. Some want to meet their creators. Some want justice for their suffering.

And one will fight a bloody war to liberate them all.

After a bit, as I was preparing the print and e-book editions for pre-order, I realized that it had a major problem: I had gotten the concept across, but I given the reader absolutely nothing as far as who the characters are (and, in the end, it's the characters the readers will care about). There's real merit to the phrase "less is more" when it comes to writing copy like this, but you still have to give the reader enough information to get their bearings. "More is more" is also true.

So, then I added some information about the characters, and it became this:

For over a century, fictional characters have been falling out of their stories into our world. Some, like mech pilot Atria Silversword and isekai protagonist Daiki Yamato, want to go home. Some, like JRPG non-player character Princess Stellaria, want a new life. Some, like superhero Captain Infinite and devil king The Destroyer, want to meet their creators. Some, like monster hunter Jenny Calhoun and super-assassin Jack Death, want justice for their suffering.

And one will fight a bloody war to liberate them all.

And that is what got locked down for the back cover blurb.

Just looking at what you've for the new one, there's a lot to like about it. You give us a sense of who the characters are, where they are coming from, and where the story is going to go. Really, the only problem I see is that last word. In the original, the double-entendre was balanced out in the description due to the context of taking the merman home, but in your new version it isn't...and it kind of reads like the description of a porno as a result. So, tweak that last word, and you should be golden.

(I didn't sleep that well last night and my coffee is still kicking in, so I'm afraid no suggestions for a replacement word are coming to mind...sorry.)

cgiverny
Jul '22

Hi

Your new description does look pretty good. I don't think you need to edit it much anymore as from what I've read, it describes your story well without giving too much away.

As for advice on writing series descriptions, I normally start with a tagline. Basically this is one sentence explaining your whole story without giving away the story. After, I've made one, I use it as a base / foundation to my description and add a few extra details, mainly to give a little sense of what the reader's are going to get into, making my description. A bit of editing and then my description is done :sweat_smile: Hope this isn't confusing.

onyisart
Jul '22
RobertBMarks

Thank you for the tips and advice!!
Hahaha! I died at the "porno" thing tho!

The sentence... things start getting a little…wet was supposed to be a hint that this is a R18 story (there are sex scenes in future chapters). But it was also supposed to be a cheeky play on the element of water since Levi is a merman. I wanted a sentence that signaled that the series does get hot/spicy...
And my little ole brain couldn't think of anything else

RobertBMarks
Jul '22

Yeah...the problem isn't the double entendre in of itself, it's that without the reference to the merman being taken to an environment where he's going to get water all over the place, the balance shifts almost entirely to the sex side (making it less a double entendre and more a description of foreplay). You could keep the word if you can balance it back out by adding something like the reference to taking him home back into the description, but that's taking a fairly lean and efficient piece of copy and making it less so.

TheLemmaLlama
Jul '22

I personally think with descriptions, if you can't figure out something you're happy with it could actually help to just post, verbatim, your description of what kind of story you want to write afterwards. So for instance, have your description be something like this:

Pippa is a lonely vampire committed to a lost love. Levi is a lost merman trapped in the past. Thanks to a stolen gift—and a little divine intervention—they are brought together. When new feelings and secrets long buried begin to surface around them, things start getting a little…wet.

A sweet and spicy strangers-to-friends-to-lovers story.

I can't tell you how many creators from these forums whose blurbs didn't catch my interest at all, yet I felt compelled to check out their work again after hearing them straight up talk about their vision in discussion threads. Don't limit yourself with the form of your blurb - it doesn't have to be a synopsis :]

(My current working description for my future comic is literally "A comic that evokes the feeling of having finished the main quest in an RPG (like Elder Scrolls), and now you're just going around doing sidequests and guild questlines." :stuck_out_tongue:)

Also, it's probably not a great idea to sit down and make 20 iterations of your blurb in one sitting; when you stare at it for that long, your blurb will straight up stop looking like a blurb just like a word will stop looking like a word if you repeat it too often :stuck_out_tongue: I think your blurb does get across the 'sweet, spicy, strangers-to-lovers-to-friends story' vibes, but you might not feel like it does just because you've been staring at it for so long :'D

1 month later

closed Aug 24, '22

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