Arresting Story Descriptions?

[yowser]

We've talked a little about Titles and Descriptions before, and authors since the beginning of time have recognised the value of an engaging title. With category chosen and tags applied here at Lit, the description remains the last important element for guiding readers (to your story and to match their interests), more than a site-courtesy, perhaps an authorial responsibility.

Most of my story descriptions remain utilitarian and purely pedestrian, but I am fond of a couple (the first was for a middle-story in a [not very well-received] series in LW, the second a stand-alone with an enigmatic title that needed amplification.)

Suzanne Comes Again: 'A walk in the bush, a hand in the shorts.'

House of Doors: 'Lust in an infinite loop.'

Do you have any favorite descriptions? Ones that rise above the rest, have a lilt to them, or are otherwise superior in your corpus? What went into your thinking when crafting them?

 

[NotWise]

Do you have any favorite descriptions? Ones that rise above the rest, have a lilt to them, or are otherwise superior in your corpus? What went into your thinking when crafting them?

I asked a very similar question two or three years ago because I thought my short descriptions sucked. Some of them still do, but not because of the excellent answers I got to my question.

The short description for "My Sister's Wedding" is, "Old traditions, broken vows, and dirty little thrills." I think that approach grew from a suggestion by yukonnights. It's worked for me a few times, but not always.

"Pixie in a Sundress" got the short description, "Sex and lies and parties by the pool," which takes the same approach. I like that one, and I think the story's views are probably good because of it.

If I use the short description to give a one-line synopsis to the story, then that doesn't usually work very well. "Love is Enough" got "Two flappers and an aspiring playwright in an old theater." I think that sucked. A better description might have earned the story a few more views.

 

[SimonDoom]

I don't know if I have a favorite, but I have a few principles I try to follow when I write descriptions.

One is to stay on topic and help the reader choose the story. I prefer a descriptive description that helps me know if I want to read a story, and that's what I try to write.

Another is to complete or supplement the information about the story provided in the tags and title and category. So if there's something that would help the reader that's NOT in one of those, I will try to put it in the description.

Still another is to tease. I do this sometimes by phrasing it as a question, or as ending in an ellipsis, so a mystery or question is posed to the reader and the reader has to read the story to answer the question.

 

[KeithD]

Suzanne Comes Again: 'A walk in the bush, a hand in the shorts.'

Does this really fit in the descriptor block? It looks too long to me (and I don't think the block accommodates enough spaces for a good descriptor in many cases).

 

[JJA122]

Does this really fit in the descriptor block? It looks too long to me (and I don't think the block accommodates enough spaces for a good descriptor in many cases).

It does, 60 characters.

Interesting ideas.

Wordplay like cum/come, a small quote from a character, a modifier like 'from hell' or 'like paradise' can show the tone, '...then it begins', 'how it started', questions, statements on an event.

 

[KeithD]

It does, 60 characters.

It measures 64 spaces on my computer.

I just tried it out on a submission form, and it didn't fit.

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

Without the title, I count 41 characters, including the period.

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

Way too late for the submittals in my first year, I finally realized the importance of a title (especially) and the short description serving as click bait. A writer may have only a couple-three seconds of a reader’s attention during the scrolling of the vast contents of Literotica, so if the title doesn’t make pupils dilate, the moment is lost. At the same time, I won’t lie or mislead. The bait has to be an honest indicator of what’s in the story. Last year I had a long Group Sex story which had the working title of “Parallel in a Hexagon,” which has meaning deep within the story. But it sure as Hell isn’t click bait. With the honest click-bait title “3 Women, 3 Men, 3 Days,” the story has my fourth-largest number of views. Unfortunately, it’s nearly 37k words long, and many readers seem to have taken an immediate U-turn once they realized that.

On the short description, for my current Valentine’s Day contest entry (yeah, I’m promoting my stuff), I went with something that extends the statement made by the title: “Don’t Ever Love an Alpha” was followed by ‘Even if he’s a great lover. ESPECIALLY if he is.’

I’m sure other authors have their own notions of what’s tried and true, but I see plenty of descriptions that use wording that I think is shopworn (even if it works): An event leaves the characters “changed forever;” A character “never thought” something could happen “until;” etc. This approach does, however, give the reader an idea of what could happen or what’s at stake, so it’s probably worthwhile to think along those lines when composing a description.

 

[PoisonPen33]

For me, the descriptor either has to tell what happens IN the story in vague terms while still sounding interesting.

"Collette bares her soul to Garrett, then her body." - What did she tell him?

"To watch or not to be watched? That is the question." - Who's watching who?

"Eve wants laid for Christmas. Santa delivers." - What was in Santa's sack?

"Don't go to Denver. That's all you need to know." - Why?

 

[Blind_Justice]

I find myself regularly thwarted by the 120-character limit. I can't adequately condense the contents of a 50,000 word story into such a small space. I try, but the description often feels pretty hollow.

That's why cheat and offer longer teasers in my forum sig!

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[yowser]

If I use the short description to give a one-line synopsis to the story, then that doesn't usually work very well.

Completely agree on this. Although it does a service to the reader, unless it has a 'lure' the potential interest is minimized.

 

[Emirus]

Who are your intended readership?

I think the title of your story and it’s description depends on your intended readership. A story entitled “Teenage Fuckers” with a description “Charlie fucks Sally into a coma” will attract a readership which wouldn’t even open the story if it was “Charlie and Sally” with the description “Young friends become young lovers.”

Choose the title you like and, as I think NotWise was suggesting, don’t try to detail the story in a few words but just try and grab the readers interest with the flavour.

One of my pet hates is when every chapter of a multipart story has the same description. As soon as I read that my interest is gone. If the writer isn’t capable of coming up with a few words to perk my interest in each chapter what makes me think they are capable of writing an interesting story?

 

[SisterJezabel]

I usually pose questions as descriptors.

‘Secret Santa’ was possibly an exception- ‘What to get the man who has everything, except her.’

 

[NotWise]

Choose the title you like and, as I think NotWise was suggesting, don’t try to detail the story in a few words but just try and grab the readers interest with the flavour.

That's what I think. What I do (when I can) is construct the short description from a distillation of the main themes in the story. I try to avoid duplicating tags. Something that might be an odd tag can go into the short description, because I want the tags to be common search terms.

I think the first short description I constructed that way was for "One Night in Gormaz." The description was "Of ancient wars, unholy communion, and the Red Witch." It was a SF/F story. I always liked that as a short description, but I'm not sure it got me many views.

The biggest problem I have in constructing short descriptions is that I'm usually exhausted by a story before I start thinking about the description. I have a history of going with something bland and simple because I can't think about it anymore.

And I agree. You should build your short description for your intended audience.

 

[RejectReality]

I do various things. If I'm in a middle chapter of a long story, I tend to go with bullet points, unless something really catchy hits me. By the time you're on Ch. 5, most people who are going to read it already are.

Something like Danica Pt. 07 "Facing blackest evil & a new toy made for two."

I'll call out important elements to go with my wordplay/pun titles sometimes.

A Fine Substitute: "Booty call interrupted, but her teacher Mom wants to sub in."

That's more or less the whole plot ( such as it is ) summed up, and I've laid out the three major kinks. Efficient.

And I'll Get a Pole: "Hot Mom's summer night fishing lands her a big one."

Boned: "Hot Mom's witch costume gets her a bone for her cauldron."

Those are my favorites, really. When I get to keep on with the tongue-in-cheek while hitting important eye catchers ( MILF or Mom sell those stories without much else )

Working drafts...

One Whore's Town: "It's not big enough for the both of them"

Just layers upon layers of play in that one, and it accurately describes the central plot of the story.

Fonda Cox: "Yes. Yes, she is."

Not much there, but when you combine it with the category of Group Sex, you more or less get the gist of where it's going. Just have to work with what you've got, and in my case, have fun with it. Works reasonably well for me.

 

[AnnasFriend]

I don't give them as much thought as I should.

But I got lucky with:

"Snowed in with three teenage girls. What rotten luck."

Nearly 40k more views and 700 more votes than my 2nd most viewed story. Summarised the story and, I like to think, conveyed a sense of humour in the telling of it.

 

[HappySpouse]

I can absolutely be drawn into subject matter that I might otherwise scroll past by a good title/description. Without ever thinking it out before now, I suppose that if you can make me feel something or feel some heat with those two phrases, I want to know what’s in that story. Sometimes I’ll even go to the authors page to find something more to my liking just because I’m such a sucker for a good subtitle.

However, Emirus really nailed it with targeting the same audience as your story. I have definitely been UNpleasantly surprised before.

 

[yowser]

The biggest problem I have in constructing short descriptions is that I'm usually exhausted by a story before I start thinking about the description. I have a history of going with something bland and simple because I can't think about it anymore.

And I agree. You should build your short description for your intended audience.

I don’t think you are alone on this. Many of us are far better writers than marketers. One of the standard responses to university students working on a thesis or dissertation is to do a two-sentence ‘elevator speech’ on their topic, (pretending you are talking to a stranger on a train platform or bus stop) answering the ‘so why study topic X?’ question.

Here at Lit the challenge is the required length of the description is so short, but one advantage is that by category selection you at least know what ‘platform’ you are on. So you’re on the ‘First time’ platform, what do you tell the folks there that will pique their interest? Lures will work differently for the various interests, so what makes your story different?

Hinting and teasing (without being too cute or opaque about it) are good, any way to create tension is good. If a title and description can work as a combo, that’s the best. For ‘Suzanne’s Supreme Night of Poker’ (a LW story with a twist on the venerable ‘poker night’ theme) my description was: ‘Sometimes a losing hand is better than it appears.’

The hope is that someone will want to read far enough to find out how.

 

[Thefireflies]

The description I wrote for my story Heather’s Exquisite Map of Tassie is: ‘Penetrating deep into her bush’. Unambiguous right? Because of course Tasmania, that upside down triangle shaped island hanging off the bottom of Australia, is wild with untamed bush covering its rugged folded topography…and the story is about two people hiking there, an activity for which maps are essential, and Heather is Tasmanian and she happens to have a map…what were you thinking it meant?

 

[Syzoth]

Key Adjectives

We've talked a little about Titles and Descriptions before, and authors since the beginning of time have recognised the value of an engaging title. With category chosen and tags applied here at Lit, the description remains the last important element for guiding readers (to your story and to match their interests), more than a site-courtesy, perhaps an authorial responsibility.

Most of my story descriptions remain utilitarian and purely pedestrian, but I am fond of a couple (the first was for a middle-story in a [not very well-received] series in LW, the second a stand-alone with an enigmatic title that needed amplification.)

Suzanne Comes Again: 'A walk in the bush, a hand in the shorts.'

House of Doors: 'Lust in an infinite loop.'

Do you have any favorite descriptions? Ones that rise above the rest, have a lilt to them, or are otherwise superior in your corpus? What went into your thinking when crafting them?

I don't know if this is accurately answering your question, but I feel like certain adjectives like "hot" or "sexy" in the title really draw certain readers in. Like "My Hot Wife's Dilemma" or "My Sexy Wife's Dilemma" sound very different than simply "My Wife's Dilemma". I know that's very rudimentary, but bullet words (not "hot and "sexy", specifically. I mean, in general) really do seem to make a difference.

Also, regarding the story description, this is a personal preference but I like it when it it's written as a question because it makes things more mysterious and allows the potential reader to use their imagination. Example: "My wife finds a handsome new boyfriend" vs "What happens when my wife finds a handsome new bf?". Same description but different feel.

Just my observations. Good luck!

 

[Syzoth]

Well said!

I think the title of your story and it’s description depends on your intended readership. A story entitled “Teenage Fuckers” with a description “Charlie fucks Sally into a coma” will attract a readership which wouldn’t even open the story if it was “Charlie and Sally” with the description “Young friends become young lovers.”

Choose the title you like and, as I think NotWise was suggesting, don’t try to detail the story in a few words but just try and grab the readers interest with the flavour.

One of my pet hates is when every chapter of a multipart story has the same description. As soon as I read that my interest is gone. If the writer isn’t capable of coming up with a few words to perk my interest in each chapter what makes me think they are capable of writing an interesting story?

I totally agree with everything you said here!