Writer's Craft Article by Karen S.
Wiesner
Based on
Writing Blurbs that Sizzle--And Sell! by Karen S.
Wiesner
Blurbs Series, Part 1:
High-Concept and Back Cover Blurbs
'
This will be the first of
six posts focusing on writing effective blurbs for your books.
Cait Reynolds makes me laugh
whenever I read her Blurb Hokey Pokey quote: "You put your protagonist in. You leave the best friend
out. You put the problem in. You leave the twist out. You do the Hokey Pokey
and leave 'em on a cliffhanger. That's what it's all about."
How to write a blurb 101: You put
your main character in, you don't need that secondary character. Detail the
conflict with just enough to get the questions rising inside the reader's head
but not too much that you begin answering those questions or deflating any of
the big moments in the book. Hook with a last sentence that drives them panting
to open the book and start reading. That's the general idea. But there's a lot
more to it because we have to contend with more than just the back cover blurb.
Before we talk
about the three types of blurbs, there two things we need to preface with:
1) Ultimately, it doesn't matter a whit if a blurb is
long or short or somewhere in-between. We have a misconception these days that
being short by definition makes a blurb good and effective while a long blurb
is by default in opposition of that, but both flavor-of the-day trends are
illusions that you can't afford to rest on. An effectively good blurb means
it's both well-written and makes a person want to read the story inside
the pages, not just the back--want to enough to actually pay money to do it.
Promotional considerations are the major and the main reason for
having short blurbs.
2) The only part of that we're going to deal with here is the
summary of the book.
How to Write Blurbs
An
effectively good blurb has two parts for a single title and three for a series.
The discussion on series blurbs is included after the other two that are needed
for absolutely every blurb.
Part 1: High-Concept Blurbs The only difference between a back
cover blurb and a high-concept blurb is usually length and frequently the
high-concept blurb is much more generalized than the back cover blurb. Almost
always, it's a single sentence that
captures the essence of the story with a solid punch of intrigue straight to
the gut. An example of an intriguing high-concept blurb from a book:
The tale of the contestants of a grueling walking competition
where there can only be one winner—the one that survives. (The Long Walk by Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman)
If you look
at this closely, you'll notice this sentence has two components: A who and a what. The who could refer
to a protagonist or an antagonist or any general concept. In the book world, this is usually the main
character but it could also be a group of people, a culture, a planet,
whatever--essentially who has the most at risk that the reader is rooting for--the main driving force in the story, whether good or evil.
This is
a basic formula we can use in the crafting of our high-concept blurbs. For a
high-concept blurb, the goal is to come up with one to two sentences, something
utterly intriguing. Here's the first section of our Blurb Worksheet:
Who:
What:
Now
let's tag the high-concept blurb we mentioned earlier so you can see how it fits
into the formula. I've chosen a hard one because literally there isn't a
high-concept blurb that can't fit into this two-part-component formula, but it
might be difficult to initially figure out who's who and what's what:
The Long Walk by Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman:
Who: The contestants of a grueling walking competition.
What: Are forced into a walking competition where there can
only be one winner—the one that survives.
Part 2: Back Cover Blurbs
At its crux, a back cover blurb
strives to be a concise, breathtaking summary of your entire story that
includes the major internal and external conflicts and the goals and
motivations of the main character(s). Let's define the terms that will be on
the next section of our Blurb Worksheet:
External
and Internal Conflict, and Goals and Motivations
Focused
on the goal, the character is pushed toward the external conflict by
believable, emotional, and compelling conflicts and motivations that won’t let
her quit before she reaches the goal. The intensity of her anxiety creates
worry and anticipation in the reader. Those are the very things you want to
highlight in a powerful, succinct way in a back cover blurb.
Basic
Information: Fill out as completely as
possible, keeping in mind that you may not use all, much or any of this in your
final blurb.
Title of
Book:
Genre(s):
Time
Period(s):
Main
Setting(s):
Basic
Character and Plot Information: Fill out as completely as possible for the
major characters in your story (usually no more than two or three main and one
villain).
Main
Character Role (specify hero, heroine, villain, etc.):
First and Last Name:
Age and Job:
Description of the character's
personality/hobbies/physical appearance/
traumas or hang-ups that factor into
his or her story conflicts:
Internal Conflict (i.e., character
crisis or what's in jeopardy or at stake):
External Conflict (i.e., plot
crisis):
Goals and motivations (i.e., what
and why character is compelled to act):
Once
you've filled out the form above completely, you can inject your story
specifics into this formula (note: you would fill this out for each major
character):
Who
(name
of character)
wants to
(goal
to be achieved)
because
(motivation
for acting)
but who faces
(conflict
standing in the way).
Let's do
this a little backwards and fill out the forms for The Woman in Black by Susan Hill (some sections aren't included if
the book didn't have it).
Title of
Book: The Woman in Black
Genre:
Ghost story
Time Period: Presumably during the
1860s.
Main
Setting: Crythin Gifford, a faraway
English town in the windswept salt marshes beyond Nine Lives Causeway.
Main
Character Role: Hero
First and Last Name: Arthur Kipps
Age: Presumably young,
"up-and-coming".
Job: London solicitor
Internal Conflict: The routine
business trip he anticipated quickly takes a horrifying turn when he finds
himself haunted by a series of mysterious sounds and images—a rocking chair in
a deserted nursery, the eerie sound of a pony and trap, a child’s scream in the
fog, and, most terrifying of all, a ghostly woman dressed all in black.
External Conflict: A menacing spectre haunting a small English town
connected to Eel Marsh House, which stands at the end of the causeway,
wreathed in fog and mystery, hiding tragic secrets behind its sheltered
windows.
Who (Arthur Kipps)
name of character
wants (to conclude
what he anticipated would be a routine business trip in his goal of becoming an
up-and-coming London solicitor but the job quickly takes a horrifying turn)
goal to be achieved
because (he finds himself haunted
by a series of mysterious sounds and images—a rocking chair in a deserted
nursery, the eerie sound of a pony and trap, a child’s scream in the fog, and,
most terrifying of all, a ghostly woman dressed all in black) motivation for acting
but who faces (the menacing spectre haunting a small English town
connected to Eel Marsh House, which stands at the end of the causeway,
wreathed in fog and mystery, hiding tragic secrets behind its sheltered
windows) conflict standing in the way
Here's
the final high-concept blurb and back cover blurb for this book:
A chilling tale about a menacing spectre haunting a small
English town.
Arthur Kipps is an up-and-coming London solicitor who is
sent to Crythin Gifford—a faraway town in the windswept salt marshes beyond
Nine Lives Causeway—to attend the funeral and settle the affairs of a client,
Mrs. Alice Drablow of Eel Marsh House. Mrs. Drablow’s house stands at the end
of the causeway, wreathed in fog and mystery, but Kipps is unaware of the
tragic secrets that lie hidden behind its sheltered windows. The routine
business trip he anticipated quickly takes a horrifying turn when he finds
himself haunted by a series of mysterious sounds and images—a rocking chair in
a deserted nursery, the eerie sound of a pony and trap, a child’s scream in the
fog, and, most terrifying of all, a ghostly woman dressed all in black.
In Part 2, we'll talk about writing
series blurbs.
Karen S.
Wiesner is the author of Writing Blurbs That Sizzle--And Sell!
Volume 7 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection
http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/
https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html
Happy writing!
Karen Wiesner
is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series. Visit
her here:
https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/
https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog
http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor