Descriptions · 3:59am Oct 2nd, 2013
[Summary: What kind of story description is better, evocative or literal?]
Yesterday, my story "Long Distance" got what I think may be the first useful comments I've ever gotten on Equestria Daily. (On EQD, you make comments before you read the story, so the comments are usually silly.)
bchandler2: Mysterious description is mysterious.
sjasogun: Ah, my read-later list's weak point: vague descriptions!
I realized that I frequently write short descriptions that I think are enticing because they sound mysterious and suggest the theme. That's the same kind of mistake that I make when I have characters talk instead of screwing each other. My preferences don't match those of most readers. These are the short descriptions I had on the 3 stories I was watching/releasing/writing:
Long Distance: Princess Twilight finds it's a long way from Canterlot to Ponyville, and a longer way from the present to the past.
Pony Play: Sometimes love is painful. Sometimes happiness is bland. Sometimes kindness must be uncompromising.
Happy Ending: At the Gala, all's well that ends well, and ignorance is bliss. Right?
Which are you going to read: one of those, or "I'm a Pokemon, and what am I doing in Equestria?"
( Well, you, of course, my brilliant and good-looking reader, might choose one of the former. Most people here will not.)
So I rewrote those descriptions to be less mysterious, and give the reader some idea what the hell might happen in the story:
Long Distance: Twilight tries to reconnect with Ponyville after becoming a princess and moving to Canterlot.
Pony Play: You don't know what makes everyday life so painful for Fluttershy. You try to help her, even when her needs disturb you. You're the best person for the job because you understand her. You're the worst, because you have the same needs.
Happy Ending: You know how the story of Rarity and Prince Blueblood at the Gala ended. But you can't understand it unless you know how it began.
Which kind of description do you prefer?
I prefer the former for Long Distance and Pony Play. Oddly, I think I prefer the latter for Happy Ending.
But then, I was accused of using too-vague and artsy descriptions for Lost Cities. Hm.
For Long Distance I think the original description fits more. It conveys more of the sad emotion behind the story, even if it is a bit open ended. The second one gets more to the point, but the first has more emotional power.
Pony Play and Happy Ending, their second descriptions sound better because they give the reader a little more to go on and sound more inviting.
It's a hard balance, trying to find the line between enticing and giving out a satisfying amount of information for readers to come into your story with.
When I look at a story description, I want it to give me as clear an idea as possible of the overall tone and style (that is, the mood/genre and the writing/structure) as possible, without spoiling any story elements that would be best appreciated if encountered cold. With that in mind, I prefer your original synopsis for Pony Play, but the latter for Long Distance and Happy Ending.
I would read any of them, however, before I would read "I'm a Pokemon, and what am I doing in Equestria?" But as you say, I am exceptionally brilliant and good-looking.
I definitely prefer the former. It gives a sense of the themes and message you're attempting to convey through the story, not just the words you're using to do so.
I prefer the original for Long Distance, but since that's the long description I guess it's fine to have a more descriptive short description. The old descriptions for Pony Play and Happy Ending are vague not just in the sense that they don't give much information, but also they could apply to any number of stories. Long Distance's first description sounds like a unique story, while its second one not so much. And following from all that, I like the newer descriptions for Pony Play and Happy Ending.
Also, I'm curious as to why you're withholding Happy Ending from your exceptionally brilliant and astoundingly good-looking readers yet are re-submitting it to smelly EqD.
Minor error of a missing word: "You don't know what makes everyday life so painfulforFluttershy."The error is only in this blogpost, not in the story's actual short description.I largely prefer the former description for each story. The new ones give away way too much.
Also, Pokemon in Equestria ? Are you going to write one ?
I suck at short summing up stories. My teasers are so bad that I got bounced for a short description. My bio in the next play is--in its entirety--"has the shortest bio." I wanted it to just be "is," but that got rejected.
Having said that, I prefer the shorter pitches (i.e., the first three). I hate giving away stuff in the description (plus, I've found that leads to complaints by impatient readers who wonder why the climactic decision alluded to in the description hasn't happened by the second chapter . . . of a 140k word story
).
Personally, I'd go with Gardez's* advice over my own. I just bang away at the keyboard with no clear concept of what I'm trying to accomplish. Every now and then I have a moment of brilliance, and it's enough to keep my readers coming back.
--admiral biscuit
* should it be Gardez' advice? I'm assuming the z is supposed to be pronounced like an s. I wish I had paid attention in grammar class.
If I'm reading the long description, I'm trying to decide if I'm going to read the story. My interest is already peaked either by the title, the short description, or maybe just the author. What I want in a long description is some idea of the characters and themes that the story is about. With that in mind, I think your revised descriptions are better.
I prefer the original for Long Distance, but the rewritten descriptions for the other two. For me, Long Distance's first description provides a sad atmosphere, while the second description could just as easily be a simple slice of life story. Sad stories are more enticing to me than slice of life stories. Pony Play's original description is somewhat interesting, but the contrast we see in the rewritten version acts as a much stronger hook for me. I'm not quite sure how to describe the difference between the two descriptions of Happy Endings. I suppose it would be because the original asks a question that is too vague to have an opinion on, but the alternative offers something to look forward to.
Me, personally, I'm reading Long Distance. And maybe the pokemon one, if I'm drunk.
I think it's a balancing act. The first description for pony play is too vague. It could apply to just about any story that's not a light-hearted comedy. The second description for Happy Ending is almost too descriptive. It tell the plot without telling the mood.
But then again, I don't read short descriptions. If I'm browsing stories by the short description, it's usually my read later list and I'm paying attention to the tags.
I'm a rather simple individual, and I prefer story descriptions to... well, describe. That is unless the description makes the story less fun to read.
I admit: if a story's description + tags + character list + rating + groups it's in + first few comments still don't give me a clear idea what it's about, then I won't waste my time. Doesn't matter who the writer is, if it's Featured, if it's EQD'd, or if it's PFV'd. I'll make an exception if a commenter / writer I've come to trust tells me "you gotta read this, it's right up your alley" but otherwise, if the author can't be bothered to tell me what I'm about to read, forget it. My Read Later list and my Quit Lollygaggin' and Write list are too long to sink 10K, 50K, 400K, or even 1K into a story that I wouldn't have read if it had been properly tagged, grouped, and most importantly, described.
Note that: if a story is properly tagged + character listed + grouped, I might overlook an uninformative description. At least, I might give it the benefit of the doubt and skim a chapter or two to see if it's worth a full read. Priority-wise, though, it will always lose to a story that tells me right there on the dust jacket what it's up to.
My reaction to authors who try to seem introspective, avant-garde, and deep in their descriptions and forget that they do have an audience - or could, if prospective readers got past the (lack of) description:
i42.tinypic.com/29z1q9h.jpg
Also, new OTP: Fluttershy x Squirrel Girl.
1389414
The correct form is 'Gardezusususezezez'.
The comparison of the two versions of each story description:
Long Distance: Both are very short, but the first one actually does sound mysterious. The second doesn't really have anything.
Pony Play: I would say the change is better... but the last sentence in the second description keeps confusing me; is it suppose to be talking about sexual desire, or psychological needs?
Happy Ending: Of the three initial descriptions, I would say this had the weakest. But this revised on is generic as hell
. Destroy it immediately.
Hmm. Honestly, I think the former. The feel like they have more draw than the latter ones.
The first descriptions for Long Distance and Pony Play are better. With only text, the second for Happy Ending is a bit better. I think with some good cover art, they'd be about equal.
My preference would be for Mysterious Description to be mysterious, but not entirely esoteric if possible.
I'm with Gardez on yours: I prefer the former description of Long Distance and Pony Play. For Happy Ending I'd like to see a combination of the two, somehow (in essence).
The former descriptions "are enticing because they sound mysterious".
The latter descriptions "give the reader some idea what the hell might happen".
It seems to me that you're trying to accomplish two things in a single description. This endeavor is not unique to fanfiction or literature — film has an equivalent in the log line — but I don't like it. I think the two should be kept separate because they tell a potential reader about different aspects of the story. Character tags should tell you whom it's about, category tags should tell you its mood, the long description should tell you what it's about, and the short description should prime you for the story.
In other words, I prefer the former descriptions. I suppose you could also combine the two:
I prefer the former on the first two. On the third, both sound equally solid. All six sound better than, "I'm a Pokemon, and what am I doing in Equestria?"
None of these are pitches, Bad Horse, except for the second version of Long Distance. That's a pitch. The idea with a pitch is, you're selling your version of one of the 10,000 variations on the three basic stories to someone who's interested in how YOU do it but has heard all the 10,000 variations before, so you tell them outright which basic thing it is and get right to explaining how yours will be a special way of telling it.
Like with my 'Diamond's In The Rough' it's not at ALL mysterious what the main arc is: Apple Bloom tries to reform/tame Diamond Tiara, who's in heat and acting impossible. Let's say they end up a couple, accepted by their peers. How? That becomes a good question after Diamond runs totally amok ruining everything. The pitch gives away the ending because it's all in how you get there, and you're trying to communicate the more personal elements and the flavor of how you're accomplishing that goal.
With Pony Play, I assume it's a second person due to the use of 'you'? In that case, phrasing it like a pitch could go like
…though that still totally refuses to say what the hell the thing is about. However, it does say the whole story will be about YOUR conflict in being complicit with Fluttershy's dark desires (so that had better be the central thing in the story, then)
As for Happy Ending, both blurbs are as vague as the other. Your key word in the first is 'ignorance' which is very suggestive, but you lost it on the rewrite. I am not one of the ponies in the story, so I don't have to be as confused about the events of the story as they are (John Gardner's 'On Becoming A Novelist' is scathing about writers who withhold story information, and it persuaded me very much to see things that way). We're walking through the events WITH the story characters, which doesn't mean we as readers have to be them and forcibly feel the same confusions and ambiguities they do.
I'm gonna assume that it's setting up the Gala Rarity arc, perhaps by showing Blueblood attracting Rarity, and that the point of the story is that Rarity never learns Blueblood actually WAS into her, he's just a jerk about it. Therefore, 'ignorance' that his heart was broken, and 'all's well that ends well' in an ironic, sophisticated sense as he kinda deserves that hurt. If so, I'd pitch it like this:
In that, we're building in his viewpoint in the first sentence, saying he deserves such things, barefaced, knowing full well the outsider view is that he doesn't. Therefore, it tells you outright that you'll be in Blueblood's head, and hints with the second part that he gets a comeuppance and 'what he deserves' in quite another way. Of course if your story has nothing to do with this it's moot
Oddly, 'I'm a pokemon and what is this' isn't a good pitch either. The pitch for that would be 'A pokemon goes to Equestria, defeats the big bad and impregnates Twilight Sparkle, winning her eternal love' because that's what likely happens
I prefer the second set. I dislike vague descriptions because I imagine wonderful things in my head and then get disappointed when I read the story.
The two styles appeal to two different audiences: the first to the audience you want, the second to the audience you're likely to get, at least here on this site.
That sounds a bit snobbish so let me explain: oblique, mysterious blurbs are more likely to be preferred by people who have read more, and more widely. They know more tropes and so are more likely to understand when those tropes are being hinted at. These will be older readers.
But younger readers haven't reached this level of understanding yet (well, excepting the occasional prodigy of course). So they are more likely to prefer the more explicit blurb, that tells them plainly what to expect.
Myself, I prefer your original blurbs. But I'm older now. When I was a teenager I'm pretty sure I'd have preferred the explicit ones.
Of course a blurb can appeal to both audiences; it can attract the younger reader by talking explicitly about what happens in the story but it can do so with enough wit and style to attract the more experienced reader as well.
I'm most likely to read a story if I can tell what the conflict is going to be. (Authors who play coy with the conflict in their descriptions are more likely to play coy with the conflict in the story itself, which I hate.) I like the second descriptions for Pony Play and Long Distance. If the first description of Long Distance were the same, but included the word "lonely" somewhere, it would also be good. I particularly dislike the first description of Happy Ending, since all it tells me is that this is another "the real story of [$CANON_EVENT]" fic.
I prefer the longer descriptions to the shorter ones, but I tend to find the tags to be far more interesting. MLP stories can fall in such a broad range of categories that I want to know what I'm getting into from the beginning.
I don't have a problem with a little mystery, but if I'm in the mood for some good old fashioned PG shipping and the mystery meat turns out to be a gory tearjerker, I'm going to regret reading it.
Let me know if you're shipping, slice-of-life-ing or whatever and I can make a far more informed decision than if you just tell me it's about Rarity and Blueblood. Style is everything, tone is more important than plot. Well, okay, no, but you get what I mean.
I prefer the second descriptions for all of three. I imagine the main reason for that is the sheer volume of stories available coupled with the fact that the vast majority are not appealing to me.
I look at dozens, perhaps hundreds, of stories for each one that I add to my read later list. And making it there is still no guarantee that it will be read. Of the ones that are selected from the list for reading, I'd say about one in 10 I will enjoy enough to give a thumbs up and even fewer a favorite.
If the description doesn't give me a good idea of what the story is about, it may as well be a randomly selected story. Given the extremely low probability that a random ponyfic will be enjoyable to me, it is not a risk I often take.
Another factor that applies to amateur writing is my confidence in the ability of an unknown author. Upon reading a vague story description I am more likely to think the author is not sure what the story is about than think it sounds intriguingly mysterious.
I'm somewhere in between 1389874 (props for a great comment) and 1390283. The way I see it, a story's description needs to set the hook: someone has already taken your bait and wants more information, and now they need something to reel them in.
That can be a mystery the story promises to solve (though if you go that route, you'd better at least be clear on what the mystery is; i.e. sell the pitch). This can be a source of conflict. This can, sometimes, be a theme the story promises to address, but when all you have to go on is a description, how it hits that theme is at least as important as what that theme is.
On that metric, I think my own descriptions haven't been terribly strong either. Looking at it with an eye of "would I read this if I saw it on the front page?", the clear best of the lot is Fugue State's:
It might not wholly be a coincidence that it was the first of my stories to get featureboxed.
Of your three original and revised descriptions, the one that hooks me the most is the original for Long Distance. It not only establishes the premise of the story (really, it doesn't take much reading between the lines to get all of the same information you explicitly lay out in the revision), it also gives an idea of why it matters (which the revision loses). For the other two, Applejinx's suggestions have a great deal of promise.
Wow, everybody has convincing reasons, and they all disagree.
1390283 I particularly dislike the first description of Happy Ending, since all it tells me is that this is another "the real story of [$CANON_EVENT]" fic.
So you meant you dislike the second description, right?
1389589 Happy Ending: Of the three initial descriptions, I would say this had the weakest. But this revised on is generic as hell
.
Again--you meant the first is generic? I can't see how "True story of Rarity-Blueblood" could be more generic than "All's well that ends well".
1390002 Sounds plausible. You snob.
1389403 I never had a video game console until after the Pokemon craze, so, no. All I know about Pokemon is that it involves capturing wild animals and imprisoning them in a tiny ball, only occasionally letting them out to force them to fight each other. Much like I treat the spies and superheroes who try to infiltrate my volcano island lair.
1389874 I am not one of the ponies in the story, so I don't have to be as confused about the events of the story as they are.
In this case you do. The story's told in reverse chronological order, with each step backwards completely changing the meaning of the segment read before it. (And Blueblood is the good guy.)
1391114
That one too, now that you mention it.
1390002
I'm a 31-year-old teenager. Well, by that metric, anyway, with which I don't fully agree.
Being a voracious reader with limited time, I don't enjoy vague descriptions unless they tempt me with something new and exciting. Stories that're heavy on the emotion and meaningfulness as an end in themselves, so to speak, aren't my cup of tea, and that is how your first descriptions paint their respective stories to my eyes. I've no idea whether that's accurate (I didn't look at the stories, so I could respond purely on the basis of your quoted descriptions); if it is, then the first blurbs may actually do their job in that they put off someone who is not your target audience.
However, I still find your second examples to be more honest and direct, less concerned with sounding like a masterful writer and more with getting meaning across. They could do with some polish from my perspective, perhaps, because I look for wit and irony in a description as a shorthand to see if the writer takes themself too seriously, but they strike about the right balance between offering concrete reasons to read on and not spoiling the contents. (In terms of polish, Applejinx's "Fluttershy's needs disturb you. Fortunately, you understand them. Unfortunately, you share them." [minus original ellipsis] strikes exactly the right tone for me.)
I'm not trying to say your first descriptions resemble some desperately pretentious pose, so don't worry about that. I just find them, I'm afraid, bland. If I could imagine hearing them as a voiceover on a film trailer, that's not a good thing for me. Others' mileage may vary.