Note: Once again I am the culprit of not updating. Since I don't write fanfiction, nor do I have a large base of people anxiously awaiting my stories, I'm actually quite thankful I'm not pressured to update. I like this cool thing i have going on. BUT one thing seeds all over wattpad like too many sprinkles in the height of UNcoolness....
The Excessive blurb excerpt.
"You got something against us being together, Ellie?" Jayden asked, his husky voice rippling through my veins. He backed me up against the lockers, trapping me with his thick muscular arms on either side of me. Ugh! He thought he could just get me like that? "Um, no. For one thing, I don't think it's legal to excessively annoy someone and two, I hate your socks." I spat.
"Aw come on, you know I'm not like who everyone else says. And besides, I want you." He gazed at me imploringly.
I gazed back, smirking. "No. Goodbye."
The bad boy thought he could get everything.
Meet Ellie, a 16 year old who just moved to a new town and an entirely new life. Like life wasn't already harder being bullied for most of her life. Here, everyone seems to leave her alone, but oh no. Not the school badboy Jayden Winter.
In which the excerpt takes up 97% of the blurb, in aspiration to mimic the professionals. Some cases they have absolutely no normal text to describe the story.
Except the professionals don't that.
They do this:
About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him - and I didn't know how dominant that part might be - that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.
When Isabella Swan moves to the gloomy town of Forks and meets the mysterious, alluring Edward Cullen, her life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn...
See the rich, delicious adjectives placed in the first sentence of the description following the quote. It's informative, and the central love interest is introduced in the same sentence as establishing the setting and makes you wonder, What is this beautiful boy of whom she speaks? How is this the turn for her life?
For this, put aside anything you have against twilight for this paragraph. After all, that and the next excerpt are both multiBILLION dollar franchises, so you can't for one second argue that it isn't successful because you woulld be eating your own words. Ok so please excuse me from my sudden defence of this fandom. Back to the goodness.
In this blurb above we see many things, the start of which is a short, sweet quote from the book which compliments what the rest is about to say. Every word is selected carefully like an artwork. The setting is established within the first sentence. Mystery is arisen.
Dumbledore lowered his hands and surveyed Harry through his half-moon glasses. 'It is time,' he said, 'for me to tell you what I should have told you five years ago, Harry. Please sit down. I am going to tell you everything.'
Harry Potter is due to start his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry ...
That's how you do a fantasy blurb! That's how you do a romance blurb!! For the Harry books, the fifth book is in many ways the pivital point for Harry. Hence the quote, as did you notice? It's the only book with a quote on it, (Or at least in the UK version of the book) and as soon as there's a Dumbledore there is a whole heap of information about to be revealed. And then the quote is cut off, preserving the mistery. See what the publishers did there? They did it on purpose to tease us into it, madden our senses as devoted fangirls and boys, have us already feeling sympathy for Harry, our beloved hero.
a point here: blurbs should make the reader feel EMOTION. In twilight my thirst (pun unintended) for more propelled me into the first page, knowing my complete fascination and suckerness for beautiful boys.
Harry Potter just straight up picked up my excitement and sympathy right away and had me eagerly flipping to the start of this biiiiig book, like a hungry person. As if i could eat paper. which probably wouldn't be a very good thing for the book ... as an eight year old though I could eat a lot of things. (don't try it). The blurbs of Harry Potter adjust very slightly in theme as he ages, as we age. As he grows to face darker times, we as a reader when we go back to read this book for the 11th time, as a much older person than when we first read it, start to appreciate how this pays attention to our emotions in context with the story.
That is how you arouse the emotion in your reader.
a lovely little common thing the what's hot list does often is ignore the emotion and the reader themselves and instead throw themselves into the hot boy. Or the hot girl. Or the girl who doesn't know she is hot but is secretly in the running to be the Calvin Klein supermodel. Or the devastatingly hot boy who screws with 1243645 girls' hearts and bodies before he is charmed by the basic brown eyes and small butted Main Girl. Or the really ugly nerd girl who takes off her glasses to reveal her supermodel-dom underneath like a death eater taking off his mask...
This doesn't make me interested, this makes me davastated. Nerd girls can't even be beautiful without hot boy or popular friend or passerby telling them to take off their glasses? :( This isn't showing how beautiful everyone is, this is preaching that we have to change to be appealing.
The love story happens in almost every genre, but everyone seems to forget that there is more to the description than just it. so please, please don't bandage and patch it for society's sake, just let your story have breathing room in the blurb.
And the ultimate of all:
KILL THE LONG EXCERPTSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS *shakes pitchfork of fire*
Love, your infrequent updater, Steph <3
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