Unread Letters and Writing a Good Description · 2:45am Dec 8th, 2014
First off, if you haven’t seen or didn’t get the notification (I’m still not entirely convinced the sequel function works properly…), then know that Unread Letters From a Friend at the End of the World has finally been posted, and I’m back on track for releasing new chapters to this increasingly lengthy story. Check it out here:
Her travels having brought her and her friends to the far-north city of Frostvale, Trixie finds herself caught up in a looming war and a dangerous plot. Still just trying to recover, she decides to lay low for a bit and wait for an opening to continue her journey.
Meanwhile, Twilight and friends continue following the trail Trixie left behind on her way north. By a combination of her letters, and the ponies they meet, they follow in her hoofsteps, discovering a number of surprising secrets along the way.
Right, got that outta the way. Next I’m going to talk about something that I see happening a lot on Fimfic: bad story descriptions. Now, you may be wondering why I, fucking nobody, am doing this. Well, here’s your answer:
Let this be a lesson to you guys. I am easily persuaded.
Anyway, what exactly makes a story description bad or good? Well, let’s first examine some bad story descriptions and talk about why they are bad, then we’ll look at some good ones and talk about why they are good. At the risk of being accused of solipsism, some of the good ones I pick will be mine, though not all of them.
Okay, so here are some random examples I’ve pulled just glancing through the new stories section. If one of these happens to be your fic, take no offense. It’s nothing personal, your description just sucks.
After weeks of being blasted by wubs, Octavia leaves. Vinyl, having no idea when she will return, just doesn't know what to do anymore. Will Octavia ever return? Or will their friendship end forever?
This is this person’s first fic, and so I feel kinda bad using them as a punching bag, but it exemplifies many of the problems I see often.
Okay, so what’s wrong with this description? Well, the first thing you’ll notice is that this description asks you to assume a great many things. It says “after weeks of being blasted by wubs, Octavia leaves” which means we are to assume that her and Vinyl were most likely living together, but that isn’t really made clear in the description. Now, I’m not saying you should spell everything out in what should be a short synopsis of your story, but you should at least set some background for the events contained therein. A quick sentence like, “Vinyl and Octavia have been living together for a few some time now, and after weeks of relentless wubs Octavia has reached her limit.” or something like that.
Next we’ve got a very awkwardly worded sentence. “Vinyl, having no idea when she will return, just doesn’t know what to do anymore.” In general, you sort of want to avoid cutting up a sentence like this. By having just Vinyl at the front, you’re forcing the reader to keep her mind through the parenthetical clause and to the end of the sentence. It doesn’t sound like much work, but it’s unnecessary when you could have just as easily written “Having no idea when she’ll return, Vinyl just doesn’t know what to do anymore.” Separating Vinyl like that just makes the whole thing read weirdly. Also, avoid using words like “just” in general. They’re not really necessary and just slow things down (most of the time, but not always, as in the previous sentence).
Finally, this description commits the cardinal sin of asking a question, and it does it twice. Look, you’re not writing a stinger to go at the end of a Pokemon episode here. You can have an air of mystery to your description, and in fact you often do want that. It entices the reader, but does so without cheaply offering a fake question like “Will Octavia ever return?” The only time it is acceptable to have a question in your description is if it is either answered in the description itself, or is a sarcastic rhetorical question. For example, here is in an example of the first option from one of my descriptions:
But what does Spike know about wooing mares? Apparently a lot.
This works because it’s funny, and it still leaves you with that air of mystery. How does Spike know how to woo a mare? Where did he learn? Etc. etc. Here is an example of the second option from Obselescence’s fic Let’s Just Say…:
"Suppose I killed them all?"
It’s a short and yet highly evocative description. It tells you everything you need to know about the fic in one sentence. It’s a question, yes, but it’s not a stupid question, like “Will Ash find a way to beat Onyx?” that basically makes you have to read/watch more to find the answer. “Suppose I killed them all?” is great because it implies a great many things. Combined with the coverart of Celestia, you get the sense that this fic is going to be about a contemplative Celestia considering some weird questions, like, “What if I just killed everyone?”. It tells us exactly what we’re going to find in the fic, which is what a description should do.
Okay, let’s look at another example of a bad description. Maybe this time we should pick one that’s less obviously bad.
Sometimes, they can't fight for themselves. So it is up to the rest of us to fight for them.
Now, this one is interesting because it does some of the things I said a good description should do. It feels mysterious, but not in a fake way. There’s some unasked questions we have just looking at it. Who’s they? Why is there fighting? What the hell is this actually about? And therein lies the problem. It makes us ask too many questions. This is the other side of the coin. It’s quite possible that you leave too much up to the imagination of the reader and not enough to actually entice them. Part of me wants to know who they are, and why they can’t fight for themselves, but the rest of my can’t really muster enough shit’s to give since I have nothing to really latch on to in the description. There’s no mention of any characters, and the coverart can’t help us here. I have no one to care about, and thus not reason to care. The vague mystery of the promised plot isn’t enough to hold my interest when all we see is a faint outline in the far off fog.
A good description should be like seeing a familiar face in a crowd of people. Off in the distance is someone you think you recognize, and so you look a little closer, but they leave before you can make sure. You start asking the people around you who that person was, and where they went, and they tell you which direction to go. A good description should naturally lead you to wanting to read the rest of the story. It should start with something that is familiar to the reader, or perhaps sets the stage, or provides some background to what's going to happen in your story. It then entices you with promises of future events, and finally caps it all off with some unanswered questions... but not so many that it's frustrating. It should feel like if you just reached a little farther you could grasp the truth, and that truth is inside the story. Give a reader too much information and they won't feel it's necessary to read your story. Give them too little and it won't be enticing enough. Given just the right amount of information and intrigue, a reader's curiosity will cause them to want to explore further.
With all that being said, let’s look at some good examples. We already saw one of Obs’ and one of mine, but let’s look once more at another of my descriptions. In fact, let’s take one of my favorite ones:
Becoming an immortal alicorn princess pony can be hard on a mare. On the one hand, Twilight now has near limitless power, but on the other, with great power comes great annoyance. Luckily that whole "near limitless power" thing kinda negates that. Still though, no one ever said banishing everypony to the moon would be easy.
I love this description. It’s so simple. The first couple of sentences are innocuous enough. Okay, we know that Twilight is going to be an alicorn in this, and probably recently too. The “great annoyance” bit tells us that it’s going to be about Twilight being fed up with what being a princess entails. This already tells us basically what the story is going to be about, but it’s the final line which really sells the thing. It all seems so normal until you get the end where it says “no one ever said banishing everypony to the moon would be easy” and you stop and say, “Wait, what was that? The bit about the moon? Excuse me?” And immediately you wonder how and why all this happens. You know that Twilight is an alicorn now, and the description tells us that she’s extremely powerful, but it leaves the tantalizing details about this mass banishment completely hidden. It makes you want to click on that chapter button and start reading to find out what the hell happens. It does everything I said a description should. It both sets the stage for the fic and gives us some background, but it also tells us in vague terms what will happen in the future. Then you get the final line which leaves just enough unanswered questions that you feel you have to read to find out what happens. The absolute best way to have questions in your description is to have them be implied. Asking a question directly means that you aren’t trusting your reader enough to infer the questions they’re supposed to be asking on their own, and so you spoon feed it to them. You know who gets spoon fed things? Babies. Do you want to treat your readers like babies? Fuck no.
All right, let’s look at one more good description, this time not one of mine.
Ever since she was a filly, Applejack has lived in Manehattan. And ever since Nightmare Moon took over, she’s had plenty of work as a private eye. When a tall stallion walks into her office and asks her to find his missing fiancé, it seems like just another case. But when a trail of clues and bodies leads her deeper into the darkened heart of the city, Applejack may find herself in over her fedora, and quite literally gambling for her life.
This description is so damn good that it’ll be hard to talk about everything. First off, it does what all good descriptions should do, what I’ve been saying throughout this blog: it sets the stage and gives us background. This is an AU fic, and so it needs to do a little more to set the stage than your average fic, and it does that so unbelievably well. It tells us that Applejack has been living in Manehattan since she was a filly, and right there we know this is going to be a different Applejack than we’re used to. Next it tells us that Nightmare Moon took over. From this we can infer that Celestia is either dead, or gone, and that it’s probably permanent night, since that was NMM’s goal. That same sentence also tells us exactly what Applejack does in this alternate universe. She’s a private eye. In and of itself, just that little tidbit tells us what kind of story this is going to be. But the description doesn’t stop there.
Not only do we know this story is going to be a noir tale, but we also know what its central plot is going to be. It tells us that this will be classic noir, with a seemingly innocent first case that leads into a much deeper and more complicated plot which, if it’s like most noir, will involve murder, corruption, and lots of shady deals. Hell, it even tells us that Applejack follows a trail of bodies. We haven’t reached the end of the description yet and I’m already sold, but this description doesn’t stop yet. No, it then tells us that these clues lead AJ into the “darkened heart of the city” meaning, as I said, there is going to be corruption and a seedy underbelly that every good noir story has. Finally, this beautiful description tops everything off just like I said a good description should. It tells us that Applejack will be “gambling for her life”. Now we know that this story will involve action, mystery, and a complex series of clues that we, as the readers, will get to follow for ourselves.
This description is basically a perfect example of the right thing to do. It sets the stage, gives us an idea of the plot, tosses in some hints at future events, and then leaves us asking questions about the plot and entices us to read the story to find the answers to those questions. It does all of this so well that even me, a guy who basically never reads ponyfics, decided to give this a read. Granted, it’s by a friend, so that helped. But even if it weren’t, I would’ve dropped everything to read this had I looked at the description while browsing through fics and looking through the author’s page.
Anyway, that about covers everything I wanted to talk about. These are all about the long descriptions, but I didn’t talk about the short description. That’s because the same rules apply, you just have to apply them in much less space. The best way I’ve found to do short descriptions is to set the stage and hint at the plot in one sentence, then leave the reader with questions in another sentence, or, if possible, do it all at once. For example:
A private eye named Applejack delves into the underworld of Manehattan in search of a missing mare. Intrigue, betrayal, and hardboiled monologues ensue.
This is the short description of the same fic. It does everything it needs to but in only two sentences. Imagine the short descriptions like a newspaper heading and the long description like a sales pitch.
Welp, I guess that about wraps this thing up. Time to go do, uhh… something, I guess. What do I do again? Oh yeah, this:
It's in the feature box right now, FYI.
i.imgur.com/jNXUxTf.png
Now I kinda wanna hire you to give feedback on my fic descriptions.
I need to go check out Unread Letters now.
I've been hoping to read something like this. Thank you very much for taking the time to write this!
This seems like a thinly-veiled excuse to brag about your own descriptions.
It's almost like your name is alexmagnet or something.
Bless this post.
Sock's fic is just so damn tasty, the description is but the salt upon the caramel. :D
Descriptions are just something that pop into my head midway through a fic, usually when I'm reaching the paramount of the events. It also usually gives me a chance to create some related snark.
Blame Bob? Nah, I say we pester him for Maudity fics :3
Sage advice. I need to go review my own story descriptions now...
Here's my take.
A good description is one that gets people to read the story.
Therefore, a good description:
1. Describes an interesting conflict and implicitly promises a satisfying resolution.
2. Uses language well, with excellent grammar, to gain the reader's trust up front.
3. Is short and contains something eye-catching early, preferably in the first sentence.
4. "Pays it forward" to the reader--that is, gives the reader a small payoff (maybe a joke, or a strange image) in order to prove that delivering satisfying payoffs is something that the author can do reliably.
You give this description of Sock's as an example of an outstanding one, but I don't think it is. It gives zero insight into the actual, concrete conflict of the story. It's basically just a description of the story's genre and a paragraph-long writing sample. What this description says to the reader is, "Read this if you like noir!" What it should be saying is, "Read this, everybody!"
In your analysis you said that it implicitly reveals the central plot, but it really doesn't. The reason for this is that people don't know to what degree a story's description is trustworthy, and so your phrase-by-phrase analysis is not the kind of thing that a reader, looking at the story description blind for the first time, could ever have figured out on his own. And this is doubly true for the typical bored reader scrolling through stories until something catches his eye.
Further, the sentence structure in this description is repetitive and tiresome. (Four periodic sentences in a row?)
Moving on, I think your emphasis on setting the stage in one's description is misplaced. Setting the stage is what the first act of your story is for. That's where the exposition goes. The description is for getting people to open your story in the first place.
Trying to tell people in vague terms what will happen in their story is, more often than not, the main reason why amateurs fail so badly at writing descriptions. You shouldn't be vague about anything. On the contrary, concrete descriptions are what get the clicks. The imagination needs a certain bare minimum input of concrete images before it can start working to create suspense and anticipation. And there is no chance that you will be able to give too many concrete images in just a paragraph or two of description.
What's more, and this is the really crazy part, the conflict you give in your description technically doesn't even have to reflect the central conflict of the story. It could just be the very first conflict, the call to action, for a much longer adventure. All that counts is that it hooks readers and gets them to open the first chapter.
2639618
Yes!
2639703
Those typewriters aren't going to monkey themselves :V
I need to see literary glory! I NEED IT!
img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121124034746/adventuretimewithfinnandjake/images/9/96/Spongebob_gif_2.gif
Me and that fic. All night, bby.
2639678
Be careful with this, though. If you stray too far away from the central conflict, people will start saying, "wtf is this, I clicked because I wanted to read about shenanigans with Vinyl, not Canterlot political intrigue, where are the shenanigans? You said there would be shenanigans!" I know I've done that a few times.
(Although now that I mention it, I kinda do want to read about Vinyl getting involved in high political intrigue.
)
Sequel? Sequel!
alex help me fix my shitty story descriptions D: I usually write them in a rush between finishing a story and going to bed, and they almost all suck
2640439
pp y
I thought you were good with horsewords. Why are you a constant source of disappointment for me? WHY, PP, WHY!?
2640454
because I suck D:
2639678
i.imgur.com/inyinCJ.gif
Nah, but seriously, those are all fair points. I figured if I didn't have the reader's attention with those first two sentences, I wasn't going to have it, anyway. Hardboiled detective fiction is a niche genre, after all, and when combined with ponies, it requires a considerable suspension of disbelief. All that follows is just to set the stage a little more, and, as you said, it gives almost no insight into the central conflict. This is also deliberate; I can't rightly go into detail about the mystery and deny the reader the chance to figure it out themselves, now can I?
Hey! There are worst things than bad descriptions! Seriously, after the first five or six stories that managed to make it through moderation without any long description at all the merely bad ones don't seem like such a big deal anymore.