Descriptions and/or Summaries

How do you come up with a good description and/or summary?

I haven’t quite figured that out yet

I find writing a summary or description for a story difficult - you want to get the possible reader interested to read your story, yet, you don’t want to give too much away. It has to create a certain feeling of wanting to read about the things that might happen in the book, wanting to know what the story is all about, but then again, you don’t want to tell everything that will happen in the story.

Great summaries, descriptions or blurbs, to me, are the ones that manage to give you an idea of what the story will be about in only a couple of lines and begin or end with a few questions. I think that the questions make the description more effective seeing as even when you didn’t manage to make the possible-reader wonder about your story, the questions will do it for you.

A summary shouldn’t be too descriptive or go into too much detail as you want to attract more readers. Basically, when you keep it a little vague but still interesting, more people will give your story a try compared to when you make your description very specific. I’m not sure how much sense this makes, but when you write your description in such a way that it is completely clear that it’s all about romance, or entirely about horror and gruesome scenes, you’ll only spark the interest of those people who love these specific genres. Whereas, when you keep it a little less specific and add perhaps a hint of different genres, more people will be interested in reading your work.

Cliffhangers

What's your opinion on cliffhangers?

Fun to write, a pain to read. 

Cliffhangers, I think they’re amazing to keep people interested, or rather curious, about a story. It’s the cliffhangers that keep me reading chapter after chapter when I’m reading a book. Every single time I’m reading, I tell myself I’m going to stop once I finish the chapter I am on, but over and over again I find myself reading the next chapter as well. And then when I’m at that chapter, again I decide to stop when I finish that one, but then the same happens and so on and on. I’m hopeless when it comes to putting a book aside when it has cliffhangers at the end of each chapter. 

I don’t mind cliffhangers in a book not as much as the ones on Wattpad. That’s for the sole reason that in a book-book, you can read the next chapter right away whereas you have to wait when it’s a story you’re reading on Wattpad – unless it’s a finished story of course. 

Cliffhangers are important, necessary even, but it’s not good either when there are too many of them. I know that I hate it when every single chapter ends with a cliffhanger. 

Then there’s also the question of what a good cliffhanger is. To me, a good cliffhanger is one that keeps you wondering what will happen - but not like when a sentence just has been cut off, I really hate those endings. Throughout the whole chapter there’ll be this building up to something you really want to know, and then just when you think you’ll find out, it ends and you have to read the next chapter to find out – that’s a good cliffhanger to me. It’s also way better when a cliffhanger isn’t just put there because the author wanted to end with a cliffhanger. I think you can see a reasonable difference between the cliffhangers that have use, and the ones that are only there because the author thinks it’ll keep the readers more interested. 

Personally, I like to add a cliffhanger to my stories as well, because sometimes it just makes the story more interesting. Sometimes a chapter just ‘begs’ for a cliffhanger and it wouldn’t be fair not to add it. Plus, I think it’s always fun to read the comments to a chapter that ends with a cliffhanger – even when it’s not my story. 

To tell it in short, cliffhangers can be useful and are necessary from time to time, but I’d rather not read them when I know I’ll have to wait for the next chapter – I’m just impatient like that when it comes to reading.

Character Names

How do you come up with character names?

Trial & Error

Finding the right names for your characters, now that’s a process of trial and error for me. 

 

There’s so much you need to take in consideration when you’re naming your characters. For example: Where and when does the story take place? What are the parents of your character like? Does he/she have siblings? If so, then perhaps you should come up with names that match – sort of. I think it’s rather rare to find siblings of which one has this very plain name and the other has one of those less common names. 

Most of the times, we look for names with meaning and names that go with the story. So, at first I’ll be going through endless lists of names online, pick the ones I like and write them down. 

Usually I just write my story while the characters are still left unnamed. It’s rather funny to read it afterwards with the referrals like “guy walks that way” or “girl does this”, I even go as far as naming them A, B, C, D, … And then when I have a list of names and my characters have been gaining personalities, I go through the lists and imagine my character with a certain name. It’s easy to eliminate the names that don’t match your character, however, when you end up with only a couple of names left, it’s rather hard to pick one. Then again, sometimes you can start writing and knowing it right from the start that your character is a Jenny, Keara, Anna or some uncommon foreign name. 

When I began my first story, I only named my characters minutes before I uploaded to Wattpad. Then, after a couple of uploads I realized that I had made a rushed decision and by then it was too late to choose other names. But, as the chapters continued and the story evolved, the characters’ names didn’t really matter anymore since they grew as persons and admit it, in real life you have to learn to live with your own name, no? You don’t get to choose it either. 

So, as powerful as a name might seem, in the end it’s only a name.

 [Of course there are stories where names are really important, so what I’m referring to is only of matter for the stories where the name of a character isn’t part of the plot]