Writing a Book Blurb is the Hardest Part

"What's your story about?"

"Okay, now what's your story about in 200 words?"

Writing an intriguing book blurb is an exercise in frustration. Adding to my struggles has been the fact that my stories are slow burns. They aren't action-packed. A blurb about inner conflict doesn't have potential readers trembling to find out what happens next; not like, I don't know, a main character being kidnapped and held hostage or something. Yet, something has to be hinted at. I know my current novel forward and backward, but I still can't seem to dwell down to its core. I can't write, "a lot of things happen, which leads to..." How interesting is that?

I suppose the first rule to remember is that an author isn't writing a book report. She's writing ad copy. If someone reads your book, how will it make their life better? "Crest Whitening Formula will give you the brightest smile ever!" Granted, a novel probably won't improve someone's life, but it needs to promise something, that being an enjoyable experience. That's about it.

I've been studying blurbs from the best sellers in my genre, and honestly, they're not great. And they're ostensibly written by people whose only job is to write blurbs. What these blurbs have going for them is the author's name recognition. Some blurbs talk more about the author's past achievements than about the current book. Plus, they're packed with quotes from well-known entities, be they the New York Times or Oprah or whomever. Well, believe me, I have no quotes to share, unless I make some up (kidding).

Every author knows the standard formula:

1. Main character

2. What does she want?

3.  How does she get it?

So simple, right? Well, try it. First of all, my main character doesn't even know what she wants; that's sort of the problem. I guess, in a nutshell, she wants a happy life. Doesn't everyone? There's not one big problem to solve. I'm almost tempted to stick the word, "journey" somewhere in the copy to clue a reader in that this novel takes a meandering route to get somewhere. 

I've read my fair share of blurbs, not just the Amazon listings, but self-published authors' blurbs, and I can spot what's wrong with them immediately. Yet I'm blind to the deficiencies of my own. It's true that writers are too close to their own stories; maybe an innocent bystander could write a better blurb than the author can. 

One thing I've seen over and over is that a lot of blurbs are just too damn long. I get that the author is really proud of his/her story and wants to proclaim it to the world, but after about 200 words, I (a potential reader) am going to stop reading and conclude that the author is too verbose and thus I wouldn't like her book.

Also, especially with some genres (I'm thinking fantasy and sci fi) too many character names are mentioned. Guess what? Nobody cares, because they haven't read the book yet. To top it off, the characters have unpronounceable names, which is, frankly, irritating. A blurb can hint at other important players, but their names aren't important; only their role in the story.

Experts tell me to leave out back story, but I need to show my MC's starting point in order for the rest of the blurb to make sense. "Start with the hook!" the experts scream. Okay, but I don't really work from back to front. "Leah has just blown her record contract"? I suppose that's the inciting incident. My problem with that is that people will need to read the first half of the novel before that even happens. It seems like false advertising to me.

With a few of my works, I tried multiple blurb variations before finally settling on one. My novellas hardly required that much thought. My advice (to myself and to other authors) is, once you've written that first iteration, start again from a different perspective. We tend to become so attached to what seems right that all we end up doing is writing the same thoughts, only with different wording or sentence structure.

Just like with the opening of my novel, I eventually realized that I was starting in the wrong place. I advanced a few chapters forward and tried starting there instead, and it's better. So, brainstorm. Writing a blurb is going to involve many attempts, so you might as well make some of them different. 

Readers make up their minds in a flash. Choosing a book isn't like trying on ten different outfits before you decide which one looks best on you. Realistically, if I'm searching for a book to read now, the description needs to grab me. I don't care that Xolar is from the planet Cuxjdll and that his best friend is Mjzfrt. I want to know what happens to Xolar that will be interesting. 

Coming up with a satisfying blurb will no doubt delay my publishing process. But I have to put maximum effort into somehow composing a good one, while not over-promising. (I guess I'm sort of pigheaded about that "integrity" thing.)

I'll keep picking away at it, and maybe by the time the month is over, I'll have one I can live with.

For inspiration, this article gets down to the nitty-gritty.