summaries

[sixbeforelunch]

So here's a question I've often wondered about. What makes for a good fic summary? Is there anything that can get you to click when you might otherwise not have been inclined to?

Conversely, what types of summaries do you like least? Are there summaries that will make you skip a work even if it's tagged with all of your favorite ships and tropes?

Comments

[typerare]

ooh, this is something that i can answer!

enticing summaries:

- a short quote from the fic that demonstrates that the author can write well

- if it's witty and not melodramatic, i'm in

summaries that make me flee:

- no actual summary, and the work has about nine hundred tags

- the summary has an easily answered question like "will they get together?" or "what will happen?"

[yourlibrarian]

and the work has about nine hundred tags

900 tags for a 10,000 word fic at that. I have literally seen stories with more tags than content.

the summary has an easily answered question like "will they get together?"

Indeed -- if only that question actually had suspense to it once in a while.

And I agree that having a fic excerpt in the summary is one of the better hints that I'll want to read the author's writing.

[amalthia]

Typos in the summary don't inspire much confidence either, however it's more forgivable than a short word count and tons of tags.

[coyoteclaw11]

sdfghj I actually don't mind works with a bunch of tags if those tags give me a good idea of what the fic's going to be about.... within reason ofc. Less acceptable when they tag like every single character who breathes in the fic and there's little to no trope/setting/etc. tags.