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

[yourlibrarian]

What's the setup? What's the vibe?

Well put.

An alternative is to include a quote and a prompt/basic description of the setup.

Yes, that's a good way to cover your bases.

I passed over sooooo many fics on FF.net where there's no tagging because of their uninformative summaries...

When the summary is unhelpful the tags can be a good alternative. But I have found I am more likely to skip stories when I see their tags. Especially for kink-fic or PWPs, I get using very specific tags -- you're finding your audience. But I daresay I have skipped right over stories I might otherwise have liked because you are telling me way too much about the sex scenes (which I'm probably not going to read anyway).

[coyoteclaw11]

Oh I feel that. Overly tagged pwps are... interesting to say the least lol