Log inSUMMARIES
Lets talk about summaries! Almost everyone I know hates writing them! I’d like to break down some of my thoughts on how to make this process easier for the people writing them, and better for the people who wind up reading them! The shortest answer on how I personally create summaries is essentially: the same way I create the piece itself! Because to me, the ideal summary is a chunk of text that functions as a microcosm of the larger piece. I want my summaries to feel like they could have come from the book itself.
Summaries are a mix of distilling the core ideas of your piece into fun, enticing sentences, while avoiding spoilers or phrases that sound too generic/unhelpful/similar to things you’d find on other summaries. I try to make each of my summaries feel unique to the piece they’re representing which is why I prefer to lean into the internal logic and aesthetic of the piece itself. Tone-matching the summary to the prose inside the book is going to tell a reader a lot more about my work than if I lean on formulaic advertising phrases that call to mind too many other books. I want readers to get a taste of what MY book is like, not someone else's. Help your potential readers understand the kind of writer you are with the summary! Walk them into the piece.
I love pull quotes (taking lines directly from the piece) because that’s the only way to show someone what the actual writing feels like, outside of screenshots of the inside of the book (which is also great, but isn’t usually the first thing people see). Not to mention, pull quotes show confidence in your writing and your piece which is a huge plus. You SHOULD be proud of what you’ve made! Showcase it! Finding a good line can be daunting, so I always try to look for something that reflects a character’s personality, or the unique tone of the piece, or a hint at the coming conflict (or kink!). Don’t make it too long. Think: short and powerful. The pull quote is a great way to tie together more vague but necessary information that often gets provided in a summary, giving depth.
I often rewrite my own summaries over time just to experiment with different phrasing because there is no one single correct answer! You can mix it up and figure out new ways to convey information.
Looking at the original night Prince summary, I was trying to convey a lot of info about what to expect with as little fuss as possible. Here is the text from the itch.io page
“Tell me what you did, and I will go easy on you.”
A fallen angel arrives in Hell, freshly clipped of his wings, seeking protection the only way he knows how: by offering his body and his life to a demon. He isn't expecting his new guardian to be the Night Prince, one of the oldest demons there is.
The pull quote shows off a bit of sensual tension, walking you into the erotica. The first sentence of the summary establishes the protagonist’s core kink trait: he’s desperate, vulnerable, and he’s “fresh” in this world. We’ve learned the protagonist is the outsider in a new place and is seeking protection for some reason. We’ve learned there’s a fallen angel, which establishes fantasy elements, and we’ve learned that this angel is so desperate that he’s offering his body and life to a demon—you know demons and you know angels, but these ones don’t behave in the biblical sense! We’re offering bodies, so expect some sex, and likely some wack power dynamics.
The second sentence establishes the love interest! Calling out his age implies their experience gap and the sense that the protagonist has gotten himself into a real Situation (hinting at the drama of essentially getting married to a stranger, which hopefully gets people thinking “oh I hope that pull quote is about the demon! Maybe he’s talking about rough sex!”). The phrasing on “He isn’t expecting” is definitely a little generic, but it’s paving the way for targeted information about how the world works and who the love interest is.
When I came back to this summary to retool it for the back of the physical book, I changed a couple words!
Pull quote: "Your pain is my pain," the demon says. "My pleasure is your pleasure. Whether you want it or not." (I found this a more compelling and sexy line which establishes a little more about the “bond” between the Night Prince and the Rosefinch, while also opening the door to dubcon and noncon implications. It also immediately establishes that we're talking about a demon.)
Summary: A nameless fallen angel arrives in the underworld, freshly clipped of his wings, seeking protection the only way he knows how: by binding his body and his life to a demon's through an ancient ritual. He isn't expecting his new bond to be the Night Prince himself, one of the oldest demons there is. Their vow will cause ripples throughout every realm. (I added a touch more flavor text for people who are only going to be picking up the book itself with no knowledge of who I am and what kind of work I write. The fantasy gets highlighted with “ancient ritual” which also drives home that this is not going to be using angels in a recognizable, religious way, but in a more fantastical way. That last sentence, which is subject to change at this point because it also feels a little too generic, is an attempt to convey that this will be part of a larger story with future consequences to look forward to! This relationship will not just cause problems for the protagonist, but others as well. How fun!
In terms of raw details on a site like itchio, I always want to know what genders are involved with any core nsfw sequences, the price, the length, whether it’s ongoing, any prevailing non-spoiler themes that feels worth plucking out to highlight for the sake of reader expectations. I like to let people know when they’re getting fantasy genders or genitals, anything that’s genuinely hard to include in a small summary but feels big enough to point to. If I wrote “Horror” at the end of that night prince summary, it would give you different expectations than my writing “body fantasy” and “mythology”. I don’t love to include tropes because everyone has different expectations on what that means, and it doesn’t tell me how a writer is going to handle that particular trope. Calling out specific kinks as advertisements is totally up to you. Sometimes it draws people in! Sometimes it can unnecessarily deter people from trying your work because of baggage associated with certain words.
A note about content warnings: I personally believe that this is a creator’s choice and definitely not a requirement. CW’s and TW’s often spoil your work, and I am of the firm belief that most pieces are best when you don’t spoil the tension inside. Hint at the edges of conflict via your prosaic summary, don’t just spell it out. I have a longer post musing on how tagging culture is currently in a deeply unhelpful stand off if you’re curious for a slightly bigger window into my thoughts on that
If you’re afraid that someone is going to read your work and get mad at you for not warning for their specific trigger, I would personally counter that thought with the gentle reminder that a lot of genuine triggers never get warned for. Most of mine don’t! Plenty of people have very innocuous, mundane triggers that no one would ever think to center, and as previously mentioned, every single person read these tags differently. Writing "noncon" doesn't actually clarify what kind of scene you're writing. That could be a super campy version of kink-driven noncon where the victim is cumming buckets on a monster tentacle, or it could be a very serious, dark, and realistic depiction of sexual assault between two human beings where one of them is just in pain and scared. This is not to say that both of these scenarios can't represent kink/porn pieces, but that a single-word tag doesn't tell me anything about tone! However, a summary CAN tell me about tone! A summary can warn me more effectively than a single-word tag.
For the same reason that you shouldn’t ever restrain yourself in your artistic expression for the sake of bad faith readers who would likely hate your art no matter what you did, don’t craft these representations of your piece with fear for people who might not enjoy it. The goal of a summary is not to ward the wrong people off. You should be rolling out the red carpet for the readers who actually want your work! If you’re concerned about accessibility, think about the visual and physical ability to open and read your work—offer epubs & pdfs, choose readable fonts, space your text out nicely, consider any colorblind or dyslexic readers. You can’t possibly cover every existing trigger, and you’ll exhaust yourself and do a disservice to your art if you attempt to. Readers have the ability to close your piece and stop reading if it goes somewhere they’re not able to handle. A book is not a roller coaster that you get strapped into and forced to finish. You can stop reading anytime you want. With works where there are potentially upsetting scenes tied into spoilers, I offer generic warnings such as “This work contains dark and potentially upsetting themes. Enter at your own risk.”
In terms of things to avoid in summaries: generic questions serve no purpose. Asking your reader “What will happen next? Will they make it out? Will they make this relationship work? Will they solve the core conflict that I created for them??” is not conveying any new information about what you’ve made. If you’re going to ask a question, make it specific to your work!
I used a question on the Velvet summary because it is written in the deuteragonist's voice. I’m pulling the reader into Xavier’s POV, and then immediately addressing the ongoing answer to that question, not just providing an unrelated voice over narration like an old cartoon asking “Will our heroes make it out alive?! Tune in next week!” (Of course, there are always exceptions to any rule if it genuinely fits the tone or the advertising kayfabe, etc. I don't offer this advice as an absolute, but as guidelines to consider where and when to deploy or deviate from.)
The Velvet summary was tough because that’s such a dense story full of spoilers so my primary goal was to introduce the characters, their personalities, hinting at the age gap, the complex dynamics within the Lagos family, while packing in as much setting and tone detail as possible so that it’s a fun present to unwrap all the many layers without ruining the story. I separated out the two paragraphs for each POV character, and spent a little more time on it because it's a full novel, and as the last sentence hopefully hints at, their story will continue to grow far beyond this.
Velvet youth, velvet bodies, velvet words. (This is not a pull quote, but rather a tone-setter which essentially serves the same function: walking you into the piece.)
How can a boy want for nothing and yet hunger for everything? Headstrong, beautiful, sparkling like the first glass of champagne in the evening—Kolt Lagos is a dazzling disaster. (Intro to Kolt’s personality, and the fact that someone thinks he’s a disaster.) With a natural aptitude for the art of tuning, he is the sole heir to the Lagos criminal empire. (setting setting setting! What is tuning? Probably something that ties into the fantasy tagged below! Lagos criminal empire? So there are criminals, we can expect a certain level of cruelty or moral ambiguity or questionable behavior!) Mere hours into adulthood, (establishing Kolt is 18) Kolt finds himself exiled from his family's main estate and shipped off to live in their gorgeous, isolated second home with no explanation, and no communication with the outside world. (there’s the gothic horror tip!) His only companion now is the groundskeeper who lives on the island. (Love interest who is being described in a markedly different way than Kolt—we love high contrast pairings! And emphasizing the isolation of the setting. My my, the two of them alone on this island? Sign me up.)
Xavier Weaver has many roles. Groundskeeper, grave tender, tinkerer, and now: warden to the only child of his employer. (Kolt is the only son of Xavier’s employer, we’re getting those power dynamics, as well as a hint of how much more functional Xavier is than Kolt—Xav is an adult who works, not a fresh 18 year old.) Xavier has enough smoke in his lungs to know when he is being led by the nose. (old wounds? Hello handsome) He has no patience for Kolt's cloying words, or his desperate magic. Xavier knows better than to trust a tuner, let alone a Lagos. (Right off the bat, we know that Xav and Kolt will not be friends and have no reason to like each other! Xav has trust issues! And the word ‘magic' tells us that this may not be traditional horror.)
Theirs is a legacy that grows and grows and grows… (‘theirs’ is vague on purpose! Am I talking about the Lagos legacy? Tuners’ legacy? Kolt and Xav’s legacy? Yes! This story itself will grow and grow, into at least two more books!)
It’s a tricky balancing act! I like to think about summaries as a constellation, where you’re reaching to at least three different corners of the piece to pick out the brightest information that best represents the meat of the story without actually spoiling anything—the basics for ME are establishing the protagonist, the love interest, and the conflict and/or kink, but sometimes you need more than that! If your work falls squarely between genres, you may find you need more meat on the bone, or if your piece is really just driving home one major idea, you could get away with a single sentence and samples. It is up to you how to craft and style this, to ask yourself what is the best representation of your work! Just don’t rush through it. So many people get to the end of this process, they’ve written the whole damn book and they just want to get it out there as soon as possible, so they rush through the summary just to get it done, but a good summary can do so much work to get readers through the door.
Let me summarize my final points for you.
A summary is the foyer to your piece. Foyers can reveal your sense of style, your decor, how messy or clean you are, how many and what kind of people live inside— before you enter the rest of the house. It’s a targeted invitation into the beautiful, cool, creepy, sexy piece that you’ve built, and that’s why I always strive to craft a summary that feels connected, not disparate, from the larger work.
If you'd like more writing advice from me, click on the "some thoughts" tag on this post and you'll see a bunch of various non-fiction posts, often about writing! Thanks so much for reading! I hope this helps someone in their summary journey.
If you haven't already, please check out my work! Consider supporting me in my journey to become an independent, achillean, erotica writer.
AHHHH I love hearing your logic and reasoning in your very very good approach to summaries... much to think about 😌📝✨
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! turns out i had so many thoughts and yet it feels like i barely scratched the surface