Warning: Small amount of coarse language, passing mentions of pairings you may disapprove of—but I used at least one pairing for het, slash, and femmeslash, and I didn't pick only pairings that I support or write for, so whining is not encouraged.

Author's Notes: While this was first written for fan fiction authors, it can, of course, easily apply to original works as well. (Crossposted onto my LiveJournal account.)
Feedback is most welcome.

Summaries in Fan Fiction
by magique

Focus in the fan fiction essay-related world is based, for the most part, on the actual content of fiction (i.e. grammar, spelling, punctuation, characterisation, etc). That is, obviously, the most important factor in writing, but what about your advertising? If you can’t sell your ‘New, Improved Fic’, how the hell are you meant to get people to read it? I haven’t seen any information on writing a summary for fiction, and that’s why I’m writing this (Of course, I haven’t explored the essay side of fan fiction to its full capacity in one fandom, let alone them all, so I could easily be wrong in saying there aren’t any). Because there are so many people who struggle with them.

In writing terms, a summary is a brief statement which presents the main elements of a story. It's like the blurb on the back of a novel, but, generally, much shorter. But you all knew that, didn't you?
Well, sometimes I begin to doubt that people, especially a considerable majority of writers who post on understand the very point of a summary. It's meant to draw readers in. It's meant to capture their imagination; make them wonder what your story is about; make them click on the link to read further. From my own experience and from hearing others' opinions, a Bad Summary equals a Bad Story (Only once in my whole fanfiction reading "career" have I clicked on a summary I liked the sound of which turned out to be better than the story itself. Once). It doesn't matter how well you describe your story in your author's notes, if you don't capture interest from the word go, you won't get as many readers as you could.
So, while it may not be the most important factor in storytelling, it is still important. Extremely so. But I think a lot of people struggle to even begin to write them. So, that's why I'm writing this. In the hopes that someone will read this and maybe, just maybe, I've been helpful. (Helpfulness is not, though, guaranteed in any way.)

Common Errors

Nothing, and I mean nothing, puts me off a story more than A SUMMARY WRITTEN ENTIRELY IN CAPITAL LETTERS. You may think it attracts attention—and, yes, it does. But that doesn't mean it's good attention. Hell, most readers will take one look and think, "Wanker," and skip right over it. Unless they decide to flame you for it. Because doing that is actually incorrect grammar and it shows a disregard for the English language. For example, this is a real reviewer's opinion on it (which I, and many others, share):
"...the fact that you would have the audacity to write your summary and title in all caps. That is obnoxious, against the rules, and a calling card of someone who has positively no ability to write!"
This ties in with all other bad grammar as well. Readers will assume that if you can't use a comma correctly—or at all—in your summary, you certainly won't be able to do it in the erst of your writing.
If you're writing a story in English, you are required to follow the rules of written English. And if you don't know them you should learn them; correct spelling and grammar are essential. A really good site I've seen (and learnt from—I know I'm far from infallible) on writing fan fiction in general is Ms. Nitpicker's 'How to Write Marginally Readable Fan Fiction' at:
http(colon)(forward slash)(forward slash)littlecalamity(dot)tripod(dot)com(forward slash)HowTo2(dot)html. (Replace each of the words in brackets with the correct symbol—and don't include the full stop after "html".)

"I'm no good at summaries but read anyway!"
I don't know about anyone else, but that irks me (and not just grammatically). It's lazy and presumptuous and I know that whenever I see it, I go out of my way to avoid reading the story. The fact is, informing readers that you're "no good at summaries" is utterly redundant because, frankly, Honey, we can tell. Often a summary that is remotely passable can be ruined by that statement. Don't draw attention to it. If readers don't notice that your summary's half-arsed at best, then don't tell them about it.

Exclusion of important details in the summary is generally to be considered a Bad Idea. This includes, but is not limited to pairing, certain warnings, and any content whatsoever (yes, I've seen it done).
The pairing is something I have always considered essential in the summary of a story. You might not think so, but it is to me. I hate nothing more than getting into an archive where there's no drop-down menu to choose the two main characters and find that no one deigns to put the pairing in the summary. This means that readers have to manually click on the link, wait for it to load, and skim the contents to see if you bother to mention it somewhere. Alternatively, they can be as lazy as you were and just not bother. I know which one I'd rather do. It's not like you're being forced to write out their life stories, is it? You don't even need to put their whole names; a quick 'RWHG' would suffice. Other forms include: Ron/Hermione, RonxHermione, RonHermione, using their surnames in the same format, R/H, or RxH. I've also seen the meshing of two names to form a pairing name in fandoms. I haven't seen it actually done for this pairing but Drarry (Draco/Harry) and Kataang (Katara/Aang) are both in use in their respective fandoms. Another way is to use a few letters from the start of each name; for example, RoNa (Robin/Nami). I'm fairly sure the later two (and the use of 'x' instead of a '/') are more commonly used in manga and anime fandoms, but I'd rather I wasn't quoted on that. Mystery pairings tend to rub people the wrong way as well. Plus, it always seems particularly pointless when you can choose the characters, like in the Harry Potter category on . Hardly a mystery when it comes up in a search for Colin Creevey and, say, Albus Dumbledore. (As much as I just terrified myself with that pairing, I'm actually a little curious whether anyone could make it in any way feasible.)
Next, warnings. These can usually be included inside the story along with the author's notes. My own format at the start of my fiction uses this method. But if you don't include them inside the first chapter, you need to make a reference to them in the summary. Many readers are squicks they want to avoid and coming across them in the middle of your chapter without having been warned prior to it is not going to leave a good impression. Non-con, slash/femmeslash, porn/smut/lemon, m-preg, S&M, paedophilia, and necrophilia (among others) are squicks you do need to warn people about. You wouldn't want to come across one of yours, so don't do it to other people. (On a slightly related note, it is a fairly good idea to mention right from the start whether your fic will include any of the above rather than saying so ten chapters in when it's about to happen.)
I know some people like being mysterious, but too little information stops being mysterious and starts being annoying. There is a distinction which you need to learn. You can keep mystery by employing poetic techniques. Rhetorical questions (questions which don't require—and, in fact, do not actually want—an answer) hang in the air and create tension. Ellipses could work too—they're the set of dots which usually indicate a pause in speech (but can but used to indicate trailing off). Alteration of syntax—the arrangement of words in a sentence— is probably trickier when you’re using it to create tension, because you need to be quite good at writing to do it without it sounding awkward. There are some World War poets who used this technique really well in their poetry. Off the top of my head, I can only think of Wilfred Owen, but if you’re interested, he’s a great poet. And this is coming from someone who only reads poetry in her English Lit class (i.e. when I have to)...

To a lesser extent, taking text—for example, some witty dialogue you just love—straight out of the story and shoving it into your summary can be a problem. It can work. I've seen it done well, but, frankly, I don't think it works beyond one-shots. Beyond that, it means the summary doesn't actually apply to the story as a whole or you have to change it each time you upload a new chapter to keep it updated (which can make re-finding the story difficult for readers if they remember the gist of a previous summary, but it's been changed five times since then). In multi-parts, I'd say to pick a summary and stick with it throughout. After all, five or ten or thirty chapters in, you might end up using something that spoils potential readers about plot points in your fic. (I feel like a bit of a hypocrite saying this, but I've used a piece of text that didn't quite fit in the ficlet I was writing as a summary because I just couldn't get rid of it.) At best, I think this is a quick fix; if you can’t get anything better, go for it—but if you can, use that instead.

Writing a Summary

Half of me just wants to leave it at that because I feel so presumptuous in assuming that I’m good enough at this to tell other people how to do it better, but a big list of things to avoid and no advice at all on what you should try to do to improve, or at least how I decide whether a summary is good enough for posting, is a fairly shoddy way to do it. So. No guarantee on how helpful this section is, but, hopefully, it helps someone.

The very first thing you need when you start a fanfic is an idea and, often, you can use that to create a very brief summary for yourself, to remind you what your original idea was. This is much easier if you have a specific format you use when you begin writing. I always like to begin with a word document showing these details:
”Summary:
Disclaimer:
Author’s Notes:”
I also have “TITLE” written underneath. These mean that when I realise I’ll need to include certain information for posting, it’s ready for me to go straight up and add it to the author’s notes, which prevents me forgetting. It also means that any ideas I have for the summary, I can stick in the space ready for it as soon as I think of them. I’ll use one of my own WIP’s (work in progress), a Young Hercules one-shot, for an example.
My original idea popped up as “Iolaus doing something cheeky while he and Hercules are training because he’s losing again.” Obviously, just reading that, you can tell it’s not exactly summary material. The phrasing is awkward, it’s a fragment of a sentence (the bad type of fragment), and some of the words I used don’t suit the character. ‘Cheeky’, while a word that would describe some of the things Iolaus does, but (in my opinion) it doesn’t actually suit him. And that’s something you can take into account. I actually, currently, have written in the spot I reserve for my summaries is “Iolaus does something underhanded to get the upper-hand while he and Hercules are training.” That’s my starting point for this. It is better—but not by much. I mean, using “underhanded” and “upper-hand” so close together sounds pretty terrible, but stuff like that sometimes just slips past us. If you’ve read any essays about writing dialogue, you’ll probably know that a good technique is to read it aloud. It applies here too (and with practically all forms of writing).
I still don’t like the way the sentence is phrased and this is where syntax comes in. Obviously, I need to keep the main elements of the sentence, which are:
-the characters involved;
-what they’re doing—training;
-the particular action my veil of a plot is about—sneaky tricks;
-why it’s happening (this one can be unnecessary in different situations)—because Iolaus is losing.
I need to look at each of these elements and decide one the placement that sounds best. I could place the point that he’s losing first, and then mention that they’re training, throw in a character name (Iolaus’ is the appropriate one here), mention the sneaky tricks next, and finally round it off with the other character’s name. This could create the sentence: “Losing in another training session, Iolaus decides to use underhanded tactics to best Hercules.” It’s still not perfect (and I can’t seem to give up on the word ‘underhanded’), but it’s pretty good. I can tweak it here and there if I recognise any glaring faults or minor improvements I can make before posting it. If yours doesn’t come out as easily as mine did (and on the first go too!) it’s probably because I thought about it and rearranged it in my head first. If you’re not great at that, just use a pen and paper or the word document to do it until you’re happy. You might want to check with your beta reader too, if you have one. We often don’t notice our own errors when things are ‘hot off the press’ and emotional connection to it can make it even harder to admit it has faults. If you don’t have a beta reader, you might want to let it stew for a few days before taking another look at it. This generally distances us from our work a little and makes it easier to spot errors. (Don’t forget to add any pairings or warnings if necessary.)

Just two more notes; firstly, the initial idea. I know from experience that if you haven’t looked at a WIP in a while, it’s easy to forget your original idea for the story or, after working on it for a while, your mind may have changed about where you want it to go. If so, just stop and think about that. Think about the plot you’ve got or maybe what the very first thing that happens to get the metaphorical ball of the plot-shaped twine unravelling. This is another technique you can use to maintain a sense of mystery. For example, “Sanji helps a man being beaten to death on his way home one night; Gin has received orders to kill one of the world’s top male models.” Doesn’t give away much, does it? But there’s a huge, complicated plot hanging behind that vague little summary. Another one is this, “When Mickey and Zain receive a case showing a connection between a domestic and a renowned Drug Lord, things begin to go terribly wrong.” That doesn’t even begin to explain the plot of that story, but it works. It’s the sort of thing you’d use for a long multi-part fic which is meant to have twists and turns along the way.
And secondly, word choice. Word choice is so important in a summary. I cannot stress how important it is (except through redundant repetition—obviously). You need to get across the important details in (using as an example) less than approximately 250 characters. Those past two sentences took up 171 characters (including spaces, which does do), so, while it’s not a tiny number, it’s not a particularly large one either. For example, the word ‘training’; the boys are physically wrestling in the fic, but you get why I chose ‘training instead, right? It takes fewer words. ‘Wrestling’ can imply playfulness (which I would like to get across, but it doesn’t set the scene as well as ‘training’ does. ‘Training’ shows that they’re training. And Young Hercules viewers would generally assume they’re doing it at the warrior academy where they’re learning to fight. It’s all about the connotations of the words you choose—what people who understand the context take into account when they glean understanding from your words. Like how ‘duel’, in the Harry Potter fandom, would be taken automatically as a magical battle, but in another fandom which involves swordplay, would be taken to mean a swordfight.

If this has helped even one person, I’ll be happy in the knowledge I haven’t just wasted an entire evening of my life writing this and a good hour or so of yours reading it. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask—if I can’t answer it myself, I’ll try to find someone to point you to who would know. Thanks for reading.