Start Writing a Compelling Fiction Book Blurb, Stop Writing a Synopsis.

It’s overtaking my life… I don’t know how to make it stop…

Are you frustrated with trying to write a compelling & interesting fiction book blurb? Does it take up a lot of your time? And it still doesn’t sound all that good?

If you’re an indie or self-published author, you’ll have to write the fiction book blurb or you’ll have to find someone to do it for you. Writing the book description is a rather daunting task, which is why many authors would rather avoid it. I know I felt that way for a long time, I struggled with how to start, where to start, and what to write. There was no clear process to follow. I did like most authors, I wrote a synopsis and then used that information to write a fiction book blurb. It took a long time to write and wasn’t all that good.

When I published my second novel, I felt like it took as long to write the fiction book blurb as it did to write my novel. That’s when I decided there had to be an easier way. I got tired of putting so much time, energy, and stress into writing just two hundred words. So, I studied a lot of book blurbs, fiction and nonfiction and I learned what worked and what didn’t and what made the two of them, so different.

Here’s what I discovered about fiction book blurbs.

It’s hard to capture the essence of the story and make it interesting, so that it grabs the readers’ attention.

Do you find yourself struggling with this?

The good news is that you’re not alone. Over 50% of the authors, I surveyed, said they didn’t know how to make their fiction book blurb interesting.

It’s a bit intimidating, isn’t it? You’ve written 50 – 70 – 90,000 words, and now you just need to write 200 more and you find yourself struggling with them. It shouldn’t be difficult, but those 200 words need to give an exciting glimpse inside of those pages. This is where the problem starts. Many authors tend to approach writing the fiction book description like it’s a synopsis. The synopsis is the tell-all of your book. It’s important, if you’re going the traditional publishing route. It isn’t helpful for self or indie published authors, who must write their own fiction book blurb.

Here’s why.

Writing a synopsis is time consuming and can soon put you into overwhelm. There’s a lot of information to sift through. You look at all that happened in your story and search through all the details. Then you try to decide which ones to include and which ones to leave out. And then you’re trying to summarize that information to make it sound like the story. What often happens, though, is that you can find yourself telling, a ‘this then that happened’, kind of scenario. And you’re writing the information exactly like you wrote it in your story.

The sad truth, is that even after all that work, some of the key compelling points may still be missing.

Start writing a compelling fiction book blurb, stop writing a synopsis.

You want to put the heart and soul of your story into your fiction book blurb, but it isn’t happening. Your story is good, so how do you decide what to pull out and share with your readers? And how do you make it grab their attention?

The fiction book blurb has a whole different purpose than the synopsis and that’s why it needs to be approached with a different mindset.

Ask your story a few key questions:

Who is my protagonist? What’s important to know about my protagonist? Who is s/he/it?

Who is my antagonist? Why is my antagonist being mean to my protagonist?

What is the main conflict between them?

There are four key events that occur within your story, what are they?

a)    The Kick Start – what got my story going

b)    The Back Story – what brought this story to this point

c)    The Climax – what is the big clash

d)    The Ending – what events get tied up

The kick start and the back story are a great way to share the theme or the underlying conflict in your story. This is important as it gives the reader a sense of what is the main struggle the protagonist is dealing with. It tells where the protagonist was, where the protagonist is at now and where the protagonist wants to be.

To tease the reader, as to where the story is going, use the climax and ending. Does the protagonist win? Does the protagonist lose? Does the antagonist win? Does the antagonist lose?

In answering these questions, ensure you’re not just putting down information. What grabbed you in your story? What emotions did you feel? What feelings do you want to evoke in your reader? You want your reader to experience what the protagonist is going through. This is key to connecting the reader to your story and drawing them in to want to read your novel.

Your fiction book blurb needs to show the intrigue, the mystery, and the emotion, of your story.

The information in your fiction book blurb doesn’t have to be in the same order as your story.  You want to use your answers from the above questions and write a new, short story. Do not think of it as a summary. It is something new and enticing but it does reflect the journey of your protagonist.

People love mysteries and essentially every story is an unknown, until they’ve read it. To draw the reader in, build on that mystery of where your story is going.

Take back your time and lower your stress.

Start writing a compelling fiction book blurb, stop writing a synopsis.