After the pitch comes the summary / blurb / query. These three are practically the same thing but can be separated for different purposes (depending on who's talking about them). If you write a good enough query, publishers might use that on the book's jacket cover. Or, if you're not into traditional publishing, it's likely you'll hook a lot of new customers online or in person after a short read. For ideas, read the backs of a few printed books. You'll always find professional quality blurbs there--but be sure to read the ones in your genre more often! The jacket covers of works that are in your genre will help you to figure out how to write that type.
Just like the pitch, the summary / blurb / query reveals several elements.
What the Summary / blurb / query should contain:
✏️ Who is the main character?
✏️ What is the major conflict?
✏️ What / who are the obstacle(s)?
✏️ Show a theme – a theme helps focus the book and ensures it has deeper impact.
✏️ Provoke Dramatic Questions - A Dramatic Question gives the story a purpose and drives excitement. It gives the reader the need to open the book and turn pages. All good books answer the main dramatic question within their pages, even if it is in a way that the audience does not expect.
✏️ Who is the villain?
✏️ What does the villain (or antagonist) want? / How does he try to stop the hero (or protagonist)?
✏️ Reveal character growth - Sometimes you may add in something to reveal the need for character growth.
Here are some of my main rules for writing a good summary / blurb / query: Three short paragraphs at most. Four is pushing it, though you MIGHT get away with it. You can have less, but very rarely more. Do not write the book's About summary in long, uninterrupted paragraphs. This is boring, and it confuses the eyes and stresses out the readers. Indie authors can get away with a few more, but if this is a query you're sending in to a publisher, just remember how many hundreds or thousands of submissions they comb through every month. Long reading that doesn't grab them earns a query the Rejection Pile. The Slush Pile. The Book Went There To Die Pile.
It is difficult to balance telling too much, info dumping, and not telling enough. It is also difficult to stay focused, especially in an 8-POV book with at least 7 major plots and subplots, a cast of 200 characters, and about 740 pages in completed form. But it truly can be done, I promise. It takes practice, and others' opinions and knowledge.
One way to cut words is to look for tautologies, or repetitions. Another is to avoid explaining things away; instead, try to sum up what you are saying with concise words, like replacing "some things angered Mike easily, and he would yell and throw things and ..." with something shorter than sums it up better, "Mike was temperamental". Also, tactically underplaying things has a very powerful effect on a scene.
Here is an example jacket blurb for The Violet Curse. As an Indie book, pushing to 4 paragraphs was okay. But two extra paragraphs were added afterward which had both a broadening effect (loses focus), and manages to let the reader know there is a lot going on in the book. Those last two paragraphs could have been cut. But the urge to keep going is very strong. It takes a lot of experience to restrain yourself if you're an overwriter, just as it is extremely difficult to add enough if you're an underwriter. Also take note of the spacing on the back, and the room left for the bar code, author image, and other info.
I mentioned a moment ago a cast of many characters, multiple plots occurring at the same time, and the difficulty in choosing one to focus on. I chose John's story as the main POV of the book, and I chose one specific plot line which subjugates all others. Those are barely brushed in this blurb, but they are there. Some, to the detriment of the blurb's full focus. But John's journey helps to push what the book is about, so this blurb focuses on how everything affects him.
1) Who - John is named.
2) The Conflict(s) - Several things in the way of his goals. These are the obstacles mentioned in pitch writing.
3) What is at stake - Very clearly laid out.
4) Who is the villain - Multiple are laid out, multiple are hinted at. But the focus is still on John and his hardships and what is at stake for him. (Rule of Three: this fourth element here just enhances the Three.)
(etc.)
Next, here is an example summary from my old Dragons and Princes novel, which is currently free here on Wattpad:
Death has taken their loved ones and made them bitter and desperate for their war to end. As Faeana Dagur kneels over her enemy's dying brother with a dagger in her hand, her cold reserve falters and unleashes grieving magic that sends a black dragon falling from the night sky—a dragon the enemy has sent to kill her.
The dragon is ruthless and dangerous, and when the beast nearly kills Marquis Morganthe for trying to control its will, he realizes summoning it was a mistake he should never have made. He resorts to other methods to end the vicious war, kidnapping the woman who'd watched his brother die—the daughter of the enemy king—and beginning dangerous new negotiations that threaten to end both of their races with one swift strike. A strike that is aimed at the heart of Faeana's people, but which might double back upon his instead.
Notice there are only two main characters mentioned. Faeana and Marquis. They both intend to end the war that is killing their people, and they are enemies. We are immediately shown ("war") what is at stake physically. We are also shown what is at stake emotionally (otherwise they wouldn't be fighting or trying to kill each other, and also, the grieving magic shows how desperate and wounded they are already.) So we know drama will unfold in the book. Also, the goals of both are very clearly defined. They want to kill each other to stop the war.
A third character emerges as a huge obstacle—a dragon—who brings about the need for change, and not in the "let's just please get along" way. This blurb shows choices that have consequences, desperation, goals, desires, and raw emotions on both sides of the aisle. It doesn't say, "Faeana is about to be eighteen this summer, and she hates fighting and wants to be free of bloodshed, and Marquis has a dragon that tries to kill her, and he also wants to stop the war..." Nope. If you can focus on the plot of the book instead of its tiny insignificant details, then you can show a lead character who has (or will have) a need to change, then you'll have an excellent piece of bait that will draw readers to open a book.
If you can elevate the consequences / what's at stake part by showing stuff backfiring, even better. Either character could die, either race could die, and there is a freaking dragon in the mix. Sa-weet! You really can't go wrong with dragons, they're too awesome.
Now look at the two titles I've given this book over time: The first title was Dragons and Princes. Later it was renamed to Heir of the Eye, but I changed it back because it didn't do so well under the second title. Either way, both titles can be used to point out a nifty little trick called foreshadowing.
The original title hints at something more. Dragons and Princes. There is more than one dragon in the story, and more than one prince. The "Eye" part of the second title suggests either some kind of all-seeing occurrence, or a great storm. It suggests that someone or something is in control of it, or will be, or will unleash it. Titles like these are a powerful tool to snag readers who are simply skimming books. They rarely spend more than 10 seconds on a cover (meaning both the front and the back), unless those covers grab them somehow. That usually starts at the title or the colors and imagery.
Often (sadly for us writers), these readers spend less than three seconds on the title itself.
What we can do is take advantage of that and design our books--from the tagline and title to the cover and contents--and funnel them toward our end goals. "Sales funnel."
So use every tool in your kit. Foreshadowing is a tool that works with even the smallest sentence.
The title for another of my books, Curse the Water, (which is currently just a draft), also foreshadows what goes on in the story. It's one of those tales you'll finish, and then you'll realize the hints were there all along, just like in my crappy older version of my very first books The Vampire's Memory Keeper, and its sequel The Dark Ones' Halo Gate (both of which are no longer available)-- and probably every other book I will ever write.
I love foreshadowing! It makes me feel like a twisted, morbid genius!!! You'll feel the same way if your work ever develops its own discussion groups and you see or hear the things the readers think about it. Pretty cool thought, eh?
Here is a good starting point for a query, though you may find that switching up the arrangement of the "formula" below later helps. Just remember that you can write two or three sentences to embellish the main one, and then break the whole thing into three paragraphs, maybe four—if you're feeling bold. You may expand any of these sentences to two or three directly-to-the-point sentences, but beware how many you do that to.
First sentence to introduce the setting. (This sentence gives a short exposition, or hints at one, in order to get a reader emotionally attached to the main character. It also sets up the inciting incident. It reveals why the main character must go through the journey depicted in the book.) The planet is dying.
Next sentence to name the MC and tell us the inciting incident. (This tells us what is really going on in the book, and it should reflect on the pitch in some way.) JOHN's father has shipped him and his mother off to a slave colony, where he witnesses the worst crimes humanity has to offer. He discovers a fully functional ship at the bottom of a crater that is littered with diseased bodies. If he can get his mother to the ship, she will be able to fly them to freedom.
Next sentence to reveal the enemy's plot and who the enemy may be. (This tells us more about what is going on, begins to foreshadow the danger or romance in the book.) But the Navine Peace Coorporation's slavekeepers learn of his plan and take his mother hostage in the deepest of the pits. Without her medication, she will succumb to the plague that has already killed three billion people. Navine's offer is simple: John can get his mother back, and they can live out their life as servants, if he returns and gives up the ship's location and activation code.
Next sentence to reveal obstacles (which reveals MC's goals. When you reveal obstacles, it can be anything: getting shot, contracting a disease, being arrested, being framed for a crime, etc. These are major obstacles. The best ones force the character to change who they are in order to adapt. Someone who is ignorant and trusting may become inquisitive, hardened, and suspicious. Someone who has those last three qualities may learn that those qualities no longer work for them, and they must change and learn to trust, be kinder, and trust others). With a broken leg keeping him trapped and the killers his father has set after him surrounding the crater, John cannot leave the ship. He can't fly it, either. His mother is the only pilot who can.
Next sentence to reveal the conflict (which reveals more about goals and begins hinting at consequences. It is similar to obstacles—if you have sentences that define the obstacles well enough, you may omit this part.) The conflict can be internal, emotional conflict, or physical conflict. While aboard the ship, he discovers the horrid truth behind the plague: it was his mother's creation. The Navine Peace Coorporation had commissioned her to create it. And in the ship's databank are the coordinates of the next planet whose population they plan to destroy with the disease.
Final sentence to reveal consequences and possibilities of failure. (This reveals the deepest depths of the drama and excitement while it tells us about the action in the story and the need for change. It tells us that the stakes are high, and the character may not reach his goals—which makes readers need to read. This final sentence plants the last part of the puzzle that forms a dramatic question in the reader's mind, even if the dramatic question is not stated directly. It lies beneath the story's pages and concepts, not on top of its flowing words on the pages. Dramatic questions make us think, worry, fear, hope, etc.)
As I have said, each sentence above may be turned into two or three sentences, but make sure you do this carefully. Break that giant paragraph into three, maybe four short paragraphs. Keep them short. It will do you no good, whatsoever, if you begin to get long-winded about things that are not yet important, such as side-plots, or other characters who don't drive the main plot. Also remember that the summary / blurb / query is meant to be direct and concise. (You guys can imagine the last bit of John's story however you like, it just covers the biggest part of the drama and the conclusion.)
Do NOT use flowery language, like that used by the cliché poet trying to woo the girl--you'll just get looked at weird, or rejected...just like in the clichés. Do not suck so much description out of the air that your prose turns purple from lack of precision. Avoid saying things like "strange", or "perfectly normal." Avoid cliches, don't forget your punctuation, etc. And for historical books, give us a time period, or hint at it very carefully in the way you write the setting and what is going on. Using the word petticoat is one such way of hinting at a time period and a location. Model T is another that hints at time period and location.
My next post is going to be a bit humorous just to give you a break from the serious stuff. It is a taste of the Funny Writing posts I used to put on my Writer's Blog. You can still find writing advice, release dates, news on courses, events, and products over at 7Bloodfire.com.
7Bloodfire.blogspot.com is the specific Writer's Blog link, where I publish writing advice and other stuff. That page serves as a sort of author page.
7Bloodfire.com/blog is the link to the main blog, where videos, news, book and series updates, and events are posted.