SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

That varies greatly by author. I won't blurb a bad book, or one I think most of my readers will hate, and when I do blurb, I'm careful about what I say. So read the blurb carefully. In addition, be very wary of blurbs with an elipsis in the middle, because that means the publicist eliminated something the blurber said/wrote.

L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

Yeah, I don't mind author blurbs at all - if it's an established author. And if it's an author I love, I become quite intrigued. (Like Umberto Eco's blurb on Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren.) Two caveats: 1) as long as that author isn't giving blurbs all over the place. 2) it's not a self-published author on another self-published author's work. Yuk. That's just exchanging back-scratches.

I became suspect with blurbs when I heard that authors of the same publishing house will often write blurbs for each other via prompting by the publishers - a sort of "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours".

But, even beyond that, I learned that even an author I like may have differing tastes from my own. I learned this after I picked up a book blurbed by Neil Gaiman which I was then disappointed in.

So a blurb or rec from an author I like might get me to look at a book, but I certainly don't take it as a prompting to pick up something I might've otherwise passed up anymore.

~Li'l Ms. Non-Generic ;)

I don't care for blurbs either, even if they're from my favorite authors. Just because they're my favorite authors doesn't necessarily mean I *like* all of their work. Or like the books they would read.

Strictly from the POV of a reader, blurbs doesn't add any meaningful allure to me. What will allure me is a good-looking book cover and a well-written synopsis.

Experiment wrote: "Strictly from the POV of a reader, blurbs doesn't add any meaningful allure to me. What will allure me is a good-looking book cover and a well-written synopsis."

I often refer people to the blurb I got from one well-known author, which described my book better than the back cover did. Both that and the cover were done by the same person, so you would never have gotten that book! (Provided that the back-cover description is what you meant by a synopsis.)

Speaking as a very small press author (we're sort of a "do it ourselves" collective), writing that back cover blurb was more stressful than writing the stuff on the inside!

I imagine it could be. A blurb can really make or break sales, especially for someone like me who judges a lot by a lonely little blurb.

Peggy wrote: "Speaking as a very small press author (we're sort of a "do it ourselves" collective), writing that back cover blurb was more stressful than writing the stuff on the inside! "

I spent years trying to come up with a synopsis for a query letter for my latest novel. I never succeeded in writing one, but after all that work I did have a decent tagline, logline, and back-cover description.

Even with 58 books in print, I dislike synopses because what I write is too complex to boil down into blurbs without leaving things out. That was one reason why I sent complete manuscripts to editors... and then winced when I saw their blurbs [and I still wince when I see the same simplistic summaries from readers or reviewers]... not that I could have done any better. Yet because too many readers want to know the "jist" of a book, some sort of description is necessary. So, at times, it's better to describe the character and list the problems she or faces... and leave it at that.

L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

Well, of course blurbs leave things out. They're supposed to whet your appetite by giving you a gist of the kind of story and characters and whatnot, they're not supposed to summarize the whole thing. If they told you everything about a story, there'd be no reason to read the book.

I think the thread has gotten to a point where it's confusing the line between blurbs (micro-reviews) and jacket copy (the short description on the back of the book or the inside of a book jacket for hardcovers, which usually the author has nothing to do with)? If not, maybe I'm the confused one.

Jacket copy is such a crapshoot. It can make a book sound terrible or awesome, but it may have nothing whatsoever to do with the book.

That's probably my fault. I call what you're referring to as jacket copy blurbs: "A blurb is a short summary or some words of praise accompanying a creative work, without giving away any details, that is usually referring to the words on the back of the book jacket but also commonly seen on DVD and video cases, web portals and news websites."

Sherri, interesting to know that I'm not the only one who flips to a random page in the middle of the book as a decision factor.

Sherri wrote: "Colleen, I don't think blurbs succeed in that. They don't so much whet my appetite as present something bland and processed down for general consumption, or artificially "spiced up" to attract att..."

I call the back-cover description the blurb too, and then make it worse by calling cover-quotes from other authors blurbs as well! Now I try to call them quotes, rather than blurbs.
I started writing my own in self-defense, so now they have something to do with the story. My publisher adopted the practice and now asks the authors for some kind of text for all the books.

As an editor who worries about things like this, here are some do's and don'ts:

Don't make grammatical errors in your inquiry letter to a publisher or agent. If you do, s/he'll assume you can't write and won't even look any further.

Polish your first chapter until it shines, even if you have to rewrite it 20 times. For fiction, your first chapter is going to either turn the editor "on" or "off". And as we've seen from other posts here, it'll do the same for customers. NO "INFO DUMPS"! Haul the reader into the story line in such a way that they "have" to keep reading.

Now, do the same for the rest of the book and make sure you tie up all the loose threads at the end (unless it's a series). Remember, some of the folks here have indicated they judge a book by a random sample out of the middle.

For your back-cover (promotional material) you can be coy about the story line. But if the publisher wants a synopsis of the plot, include the ending. They want to know if you can tie it all together.

Info dumps, as Al called them, are annoying to the reader as well. As a kid, I read the Babysitters' Club series for a while. Each book would start as if it was a stand-alone book, and then in chapter 2 or 3, one of the characters would randomly 'daydream' a ton of background information. That got really annoying.

End of my rant, but I have to agree that writing expository rather than narrative gets annoying. Writers need to to work in the description through well-used details.

Al wrote: Polish your first chapter until it shines, even if you have to rewrite it 20 times. For fiction, your first chapter is going to either turn the editor "on" or "off". And as we've seen from other posts here, it'll do the same for customers."

Agree. I reworked my own first chapter about one hundred times, so much so that I can feel my blood pressure rise if I look at it.

Typically, as an impatient reader, I find it hard to give a book more than 50 pages for it to hook me in. The first pages have to be good, but the standard can't drop off afterwards otherwise I'll abandon the read.

@Julie That does sound irritating. Reminds me of why I stopped reading Harry Potter and decided to settle for the movies; the whole retelling of his living arrangements with his aunt and uncle at the beginning of each book became very ordinary.

My wonderful (and much-missed) writing mentor would only let us polish that first chapter so many times, and then we had to MOVE ON. Finish the book first, she'd say, then you can go back and putter around.

Solid advice too, because I wound up throwing away the first five chapters of that particular manuscript.

Beware of no info-dumps either. And I actually like the so-called info-dumps on Harry Potter, I think they are done right. Repeating or giving information to the reader is not a info-dump, doing it in a "as you know Bob", all of one go, is. But if books are independent, author should assume books can and will be read in any order and should leave just a bit of recap for random readers - or maybe the reader read the previous book a while ago, and does not remember much nor care to go check.

Because while the author might have rewritten the first chapter dozens or hundreds of times, the reader has to *get* it at first read, so easy on concepts introduced. I just tried the first book by a new highly praised author and could not make it past the first 3 chapters. I did not like the writing itself, but a major problem was her worlbuilding, she just dropped too many stupid madeup words and concepts along with geographical names, without an index or anything actually explained about that worldbuilding. A well done infodump would have improved the readability (for me at least). Instead I will never try a book by hers again.

Or then there is that very very skilled thing some authors do which is to bring up the relevant details or clues to what happened before all scattered in the first pages of a certain PoV without it being an infodump. GRRM did it very well in the first ASOIAF sequels, not sure if his series is not now too long for it, and has to have one of those synopsis right at beginning.

I suspect a simpler writing rule would be: "Don't write boring bits".

Hehe - I went to a Kris and Dean (Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith) writing seminar ages ago, and made the comment that I hated to stop the action/dialogue for description (my Achilles' Heel), because "description was boring."

The response (from Dean, I believe) - a polite but truthful "Then you're doing it wrong."

And Hirondelle, I'm with you on the made-up words. I've tossed many o' Fantasy novel because there was too much faux-foreign language gibberish. I hates it, I do. XKCD said it best: http://xkcd.com/483/

This is why the British are not missed in their former colonies.

Andrea wrote: "I suspect a simpler writing rule would be: "Don't write boring bits"."

A corollary: Don't write about stuff you don't understand.

I'm looking at YOU Lee Child, British guy who's never been in the US military. (OMG the stuff he got WRONG.)

Oh and romance novelists, make sure things are anatomically possible before writing your love scenes.

as a reader i was put off buying anything as a publisher i was horrified
who would want to take her on

Sherri wrote: "I did a (short) stint proofing for a publisher of erotic romance stories and I cannot begin to count the number of stories I read THAT WERE HEADING TO PRINT where the author described things quite ..."

That made me laugh so hard - it's almost heading into "so bad it's good" territory if you have to start disconnecting body parts :)

lol sherri