Tag Archives: blurb

The monster under the bed

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There are many stages of writing a book. The initial excitement of coming up with the concept is energizing, almost euphoric. Getting lost in the fugues of writing the guts of the story is heavenly. Getting through the final edits and formatting the story is a mild form of torture. But having to summarize your 90,000-word story into a 200-word blurb is excruciating.

I have written about this dilemma before, and I received a comment that I will carry with me as I journey further into my writing career. The creator of the comment told me it should be easy, and summarized the movie Home Alone by saying, “A child is left alone at Christmas to defend his home against burglars”.

While I agree with that summation of a movie I watch every Christmas, it is difficult to separate myself from the tedious hours I spent creating each character, and each scenario, in my book. The stories I write, and the personalities I create, become a part of me. To dissect every nuance of every storyline and squeeze it into 200 words is almost impossible. I am involved with these characters, invested in their lives, and to have to curtail the fabric of their very being by choosing a limited number of words to describe their story feels like a disservice to them.

The initial idea, the guts of the story, the character development, and the relationships I create in my stories are the fluffy pillows, the feathery duvet, and the soft comfortable mattress. The blurb, the 200 words I must extract from the 90,000 words in my story, is the monster hiding under the bed.

Blurbs kill creativity

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There, I said it. The blurb that is required to be the summation of a novel will take every ounce of a writer’s creativity and send them into the darkest corner to ignore this required task and shudder in absolute horror. I’m sure I speak for other authors when I say, having to encapsulate 95,000 plus words in two or three paragraphs is torturous.

I can sit in front of a computer for months, listening to the voices in my head, and come up with an amusing, albeit disturbing, story. But having to create an ‘elevator pitch’ for this last book in my series is making my head spin. There is so much to say, and only so many words in which to say it.

‘Maniacal grandfather spawns a legacy of death and destruction’. It’s a good start, but it does not do justice to the end of The Relative Series. The five books leading up to this grand finale tell the tales of the people in his life who were affected by his choices, and the few words I have to describe this series is distressing.

I can only hope my brain will be able to create a log line that will draw the readers into the story and make them want to follow it from its beginning to its end. It has been an innovative journey for me, and one I hope you want to see to its conclusion.

As I spend the remaining hours of his day beating delicate words into submission, I can only hope the blurb I create will entice you to read this series of stories.