Story Descriptions - over rated?

[Chicklet]

Personally, I don't put much stock into a story description, as a reader, I mean...When I'm looking through stories I pretty much have to click on it and start to read it before I decide whether I'm going to like it or not.

Honestly, though, the ones with very clever descriptions always get me in.

Unfortunatly, I don't know how to write clever descriptions.

What about you? What're your experiences with these horrible...wonderful...miserable...little things?

 

[jfinn]

Honestly I suck at them. They're the worst part of posting as far as I'm concerned.

Jayne

 

[deliciously_naughty]

Hate the damn things.

 

[Seattle Zack]

Kind of like having to come up with a second title, isn't it? I think my next description will be "Just read the thing and vote, goddamnit!"

--Zack

 

[Chicklet]

Kind of like having to come up with a second title, isn't it? I think my next description will be "Just read the thing and vote, goddamnit!"

--Zack

lmao

that is great

i would read that story.

 

[oggbashan]

I made a bad mistake with one of my stories - Stag Party.

The description led readers to expect far more than they got so it has a very poor score.

I haven't yet decided whether to change the description or rewrite the story. I ought to rewrite but I have so many unfinished stories that I haven't got time to rewrite the earlier postings.

The Stag Party will be written when I bring all the stories with that group of characters together as one continuous epic. I'm about 30% complete on that but Stag Party comes near the end.

I think that the description is probably more important than the title and should sell the story (but not over-sell).

Og

 

[ffreak]

The description is supposed to tempt the reader in. Just like all those spam emails that say: In response to your inquiry - and contain ads for weight loss programs. I didn't send them an inquiry for weight loss. Unless they're talking about a chocolate diet.

I read somewhere that Laurel puts the tag lines on the stories. Unfortunately I didn't read it until after I submitted my story. She used my line. Does that mean my line was OK, or that she would have sent it back, asking for a description?

Descriptions are hard (no pun intended) but they're an exercise. Maybe we should get a thread going on trying to hook readers with short descriptions.

(PS. while we're at it, what's up with the keywords?)

 

[oggbashan]

(PS. while we're at it, what's up with the keywords?)

The keywords are supposed to help readers use the search engine to find stories that they will like. I have used keywords "skirt", "petticoat", "hair" etc.

The search engine will also find those "keywords" in the title or description.

Try for yourself. Go to "search stories" enter keyword "hair" and see what you get.

Og

 

[bridgeburner]

I do read the story descriptions and have often made a choice of whether or not to read a story based on the description. I've probably missed some gems. I've certainly read some utter crap, but l still find the blurbs helpful.

I read a lot of non-consent stories and I can tell you right off that when the blurb says something like "Rich bitch gets first taste of black meat" I take a pass. That particular cliche just isn't my kink and odds are good I'm going to end up reading about some guy with a 15 inch dick as big around as a coke can. yawn. I also have a tendency to skip the stories where they make a point of telling you that in the middle of being gang-raped the cheerleader transforms into a cum-swilling nymphomaniac.

-B

 

[ffreak]

Many thanks, King Ogg.

 

[Sabledrake]

I always have a hard time with the story descriptions. That space to fill in is just too teeny! Then again, doing a synopsis has always been my worst trial.

Sabledrake

 

[destinie21]

I think I'll post those cheesy movie critic synopsis
you know

It's laugh out loud funny
Two thumbs up. Way up
If you only read one story today read (insert title here)
The story of the (insert season here)


my synopsis are always bad anyhow

 

[KenJames]

Titles are more important. Given my proclivities, a title like "Front Lawn Butt Sex" (KillerMuffin) will get me every time and I never even notice the description.

Still, I think the descriptions are useful. I almost always read them and often base my decision on whether or not to read a story on them. If I find an author I really like, I eventually read all of his/her stories, but titles and descriptions still determine which stories I read first.

Since I'm currently posting my rather large backlog of stories, devising descriptions has frequently been an effort.

I'm now working on new stories and I find myself thinking about the description, as well as the title, as I'm writing the story. I think that helps me focus on what I'm trying to say. Of course, that keeps changing as the story twists around on me.

 

[flawed_ethics]

... or am I?

I'm a little surprised no one's commented on the handy 'or' clause. For example: "Co-worker gets in to more than she bargained for ... or does she?"

I don't know about the rest of you but I tend to take a pass at these, unless they're recommened or too good to pass up. The worst part is I've wanted to type them in to my descriptions a handful of times!

 

[The_Fool]

I find myself skipping over stories where the description has words mispelled or improperly used or it just sounds stupid.

I hate writing them for my stories, too.

 

[Madame Manga]

I write them, I agonize over them, I get them just so...and then when the story comes up, often they have been changed, and not for the better. I give up.

Though I heard once that the title and blurb had to fit on one line, and so Laurel would shorten your blurb if you had too long a title. Maybe that's my problem.

MM

 

[Uther_Pendragon]

I carelessly omitted posting ANY description for
my one and only submission in the "poetry" category.
The number of downloads sucked, I got ONE vote, and that
vote was a 3.
(This was not deathless verse, but it rhymed and it scanned .
Half the sugmissions in that category do neither.)
Anyway, as well as leaving that category on Lit alone,
another of my lessons from that exercise was to always
write a description.

 

[Icingsugar]

The one story I've sumbitted so har gave me a headache trying to come up with a short description. Often, too much happens in my stories to cram into a minimal summary or even a movile-like tagline teaser.

If you write simple stories of a single encounter, I guess a description like "Ellie's first time up the rear" might cut it. But it hasn't for me so far.

 

[SlaveMasterUK]

I personally love writing synopses, although I'm not sure if the description on my one story here is any good - well, it's either terrible, or fantastic, and I can't decide.

That said, I'm going to have real trouble giving the reader ANY idea whatsoever what The Fallen is about when I post it... I must have written 10 different synopses for that and Rhiana over the last year, most of which are hidden in commented sections of code in the software I write, along with extracts, quotes and links to Lit, just in case a future developer takes over my soon-to-be obsolete work.

ax

 

[damppanties]

I carelessly omitted posting ANY description for
my one and only submission in the "poetry" category.

I don't think you can post descriptions for poetry.


I hate doing descriptions too. I am not satisfied with some, some are okay, two are good. One of the two good ones is Laurel's.

 

[KenJames]

I don't see any reason why a description has to be a literal synopsis. Its purpose is to give a feel for the story and draw the reader in.

"We will grant you one common male fantasy . . . " is going to be description for one of my upcoming stories. Now, if I could only come up with a good title . . .

 

[KenJames]

I heard once that the title and blurb had to fit on one line, and so Laurel would shorten your blurb if you had too long a title. MM

The maximum seems to be about 50 characters.

 

[KenJames]

I heard once that the title and blurb had to fit on one line, and so Laurel would shorten your blurb if you had too long a title. MM

The maximum seems to be about 50 characters.

 

[SlickTony]

The synopsis line is too damn short.

 

[BlackSnake]

Sweetie,

I'm with you. I'm not very clever when it comes to story descriptions. Most of my stories are in the incest cat. The readers are willing to over-look the technical inferiority of my work in exchange for its content, or they have seen my pics and are wondering what that sick MF is up to now.

BlackSnake