CCC: cleverpun's Critique Corner: Description/Title Reviews #1 · 1:18am Nov 21st, 2015
The description and title are some of the most important parts of a story. They provide readers with their first impression, convince them to read it, and characterize your story even after it is finished.
Today, I'm trying something new. I took a set of stories, and reviewed them based solely on their descriptions, titles, and other relevant paratext. I took away all my feelings about the genres, tags, and/or authors. I asked myself one question per story: would I read this—if I were interested in the genre—based only on the description?
Stories found via featured box on 11/19/'15
A Stallion Among Mares by Enigmatic Otaku
The title is vague at best and bland at worst.
The entire description is grammatically awkward. The first paragraph has an awkward semicolon, the second paragraph is phrased confusingly, and the third paragraph has too many clauses and is phrased confusingly.
It does at least divide the description with a horizontal rule. All the information below the rule, however, would fit better in an author's note.
The tags do tell the reader what this is (porn), but the description paints the story as amateurish and indecisive.
Verdict: Would not read.
On The Natural Rise And Fall of Celestial Bodies by Georg
The title appears to be some sort of in-joke that will only make sense after reading the story.
The major issue with this description is that it is vague. It tells the reader nothing about the story’s tone or content. I only know it is a Comedy from the tags.
Considering how short the description is, spending space mentioning it was for a writeoff and a redundant note about the cover source feels an incredible waste of space.
Also has a punctuation error (missing period).
Verdict: Would not read.
Colors of the Soul by Monochromatic
This description is actually mostly good. It sets up the main conceit of the story, and then the main conflict.
The conflict hook could use a little elaboration, though. It’s only one sentence, and is somewhat vague as a result.
The description really falls apart after the horizontal rule, however. “RariTwi Challenge fic meant to be a different take on one of the many Soulmate!AU prompts circulating Tumblr.” It crams a bunch of buzzwords, a value judgement, and two separate notes about the origin of the fic into a single sentence. It could easily be an author’s note, but instead forces the prospective audience to start drawing conclusions about the fic before it has even started. It also retroactively makes the title less interesting.
Verdict: Would read, if the part after the horizontal rule was absent.
Of Gods And Mortals by Deep Thought
First-person descriptions are tricky things. First-person narration hinges on emotional closeness to the character, and writing to the strengths of that format.
This description provides no clue about the plot of the story. It provides no information about the protagonist. If anything, it paints the story as lacking focus (since the description is so vague), and the protagonist as lacking defining features (since the first we see of them is so cliché and dull). This is backed up by the title, which is vague and generic. It is also corroborated by the tags, which don’t seem to match the tone of the description.
Even past that, the description is composed of a lot of meaningless sentiments. “Reality” and “sanity” are concepts, not "units". The third sentence in particular makes almost no sense.
The co-author credit is something that should be placed in the description, but begging for cover art is not.
Verdict: Would not read.
The Floor is Lava by Caliaponia
The title here is good; it immediately evokes childhood and imagination. The ubiquity of the phrase makes it more powerful and evocative, rather than simply cliche.
The main part of the description, however, is one big run-on sentence.
The second sentence also feels a little dull; it needlessly spells out the entire story. I also question the point of a title drop in the description; the title is already effective, it doesn’t require repetition.
Verdict: Would not read.
Better Late Than Never by Bookish Delight
This description is actually an example of how to use long sentences well and how NOT to use long sentences well. The first sentence is constructed well; despite having multiple clauses, it is easy to follow. The second set of commas could be replaced with dashes to be safe, but it’s decent as-is.
The second sentence, however, has an awkward use of dash instead of semicolon. It would be better as two sentences; the second part in particular has a lot of subjects
The description’s other major problem is its vagueness. It provides no real information about the story’s setting or plot. Judging by the comments, this is supposed to mask a twist. The description doesn't draw the reader in or hint at that twist, though.
Verdict: Would not read.
Why No One Messes With Celestia by scion
The title has a severe disconnect with the genre tags. The title (and to a lesser extent, the description) seem to imply a Comedy. Yet, that tag is absent.
This story throws a lot of universe-specific terminology at the reader, as well as a few spoilers, which seems to imply it is meant for pre-existing fans of Mass Effect. Yet the last line is clearly intended for people who could not already identify the crossover franchise.
Further, there is a tonal dissonance between the description of the story and the themes of Mass Effect. Mass Effect is a series about how victory comes at a cost (among other themes), but the description makes a major point of characterizing Celestia as OP.
Even leaving that aside, the description gives too much information. There is no need to read the story, because the plot is obvious from the description. It also has a typo (bringing).
Verdict: Would not read.
Thank you. The missing period is intentional because it looks funny with it, the title is enigmatic because it is designed to pull the reader into clicking the link (commonly called 'clickbait') and crediting the picture source and story origin is just good policy. I normally credit my editors too on the splash page, but this one went up unedited.
You make several good points with my story description. Things I intend to keep in mind for my next story, though I don't think I'll be able to incorporate all of them (a sequel to this story should probably have a related title...) As for my responses...
I admit the title implies comedy yet it is not, but I do not intend to change it now, so I'll have to keep this in mind for next time.
There is some universe specific terminology, but I would argue that none of it would really go over the head of someone new to the franchise. And the last line is actually a search line- I added it because I'll sometimes search things like "Mass Effect" in the browse box and see what comes up, and this line is intended to capture that... though I never really checked that...
Tonal dissonance in such a manner is something I did not intend or even think about. Something I'll have to keep in mind for next time.
Yes, the description gives away the plot, but then, I never intended the plot of this story to be complex in any way. This story isn't about what happens, but how it happened. The journey is just as important as the end result here. The reader reads to find out how it happens, not what happened. And thanks for pointing out the typo, believe it or not you were the first on this particular one... I'm not sure how that slipped past everyone who has read the story.
Anyways, interesting critique, it exposed some things I will need to improve.
I like this idea a lot; I think a lot of people don't realize how much their description matters. I don't know how many times I've seen a description which was obviously dashed off in twenty seconds before hitting "submit" by an author who (hopefully) put far more thought into their story proper than into the very first part of the story their prospective audience would actually read.
It would be nice, for these posts, if you copy-pasted the actual descriptions into your review. As-is, I ended up clicking to the story to read the description before coming back here to see your thoughts!
I also wonder of looking at the quality/relevance of the cover art would be a good idea, since it's also part of that "first impressions" category that the title and description occupy. That might get too far afield of what the author does, though; (most) authors don't draw their own coverart, after all.
Anyway, I like this, and hope to see a few more from you!
3557182 I actually intentionally left out the cover art in my appraisal. Like you said, most authors don't have any real involvement in their cover art. Most authors grab something off derpibooru/Google/etc or use nothing at all. I agree that cover art is a crucial part of one's first impressions, but there is rarely much substantial comment to be made about it.
I considered pasting the descriptions in, but it would've bloated the post by a ridiculous amount. Perhaps in future, I'll do smaller batches of stories, so there will be room to duplicate the original description.
Thanks
3557143 Intentional spelling/grammar errors need to be used very cautiously. If it is not very obvious that they are intentional, then they look like mistakes instead of jokes. I'd put this one in that category; more mistake than joke
Actually, clickbait usually refers to more explicitly, bluntly silly things. Something which has an obviously goofy premise, picture, and/or title. Something like that John Cena fic or Trixie Sits On Twilight, for example.
If you were intentionally trying to create a clickbait story, then the description needs to be much more explicit. Mystery and vagary is like the opposite of clickbait.
Crediting the cover source is good policy, but that's what the source box is for. Saying your story placed eighth in a semi-obscure contest is not what I would call a strong indicator of quality. I actually wrote a blog post where that was one of the points addressed.
Clickbait is also generally not viewed for its writing quality; the description of your story appears to have multiple, conflicting goals.
3557178 "Reaper" and "indoctrinating" are absolutely going to go over the head of someone not familiar with the franchise. They both have very specific in-universe connotations (which differ from their real-life connotations). As I noted in the review, the nature of the Reapers is a spoiler in itself. Two terms might not seem like a lot, but it definitely is in the context of a first impression.
If the point of the story is just to be clickbait about how Celestia beats up a Reaper, then the description and the story both should be fairly short. Really, "Celestia beats up a Reaper" would be a perfectly adequate description, if that was truly the only point of the story. The attempt at setup implies that there is slightly more to the story than that, though. The goals of your description need to match the goals of the story. But the description should only tell the story in very specific circumstances (i.e. popcorn clickbait).
Man, I guess my description standards are pretty low. Must be why so many of mine suck. D:
3557428 Writing descriptions is definitely a skill that takes practice. FIMfic does provide a sort of safety net for people who are bad at it with the various tagging systems.
My standard advice for tricky descriptions is to take an illustrative excerpt from the story and make that the description. Or it was, until FIMfic made that grounds for story rejection.
When it comes to reading descriptions, I definitely have high standards. After all, if one wants to read good stories, they must show some level of selectiveness. Sturgeon's law practically requires it, if one is trying to spend their time wisely
Does anything please you?
3557460
I just can't remember ever not wanting to read a story because the description was poorly made (typos aside, those are never a good sign), only because it was full of hints that the content wouldn't be worth it.
3558023 Yes; having standards doesn't mean I am unpleasable.
As an editor yourself, I imagine you have developed standards as well
3558037 Well, a good description should be designed to sell the story to a potential audience. Like you said, this means hinting at the content and execution. That's where a lot of my reviewed descriptions failed, in fact; they displayed problems with their content before the story even began.
It's also why I tried to approach each description as if I were someone who wanted to read that genre and story (since presumably a potential reader wouldn't click on the story otherwise).
Thank you, I'm always interested in getting more feedback, and the title / description is certainly a key area. I'm glad that the title worked, at least.
As for the description, I'm glad to know what didn't work for you, though I'll admit that at the moment I'm at a bit of a loss as to what i'd change. I know the first sentence was on the long side, but I didn’t think it was technically a run-on. I'm rather fond of the 'what's a little filly to do' phrasing, but the alternative to the long sentence would be to start the second sentence with a preposition.
As far as the (current) second sentence goes, I'm a bit perplexed. I didn't see how noting that the story contains 'adventure, peril and cookies' is all that revelatory; if anything, I would have guessed it was redundant (cookies were already mentioned, adventure and peril can be inferred). I suppose it could be cut, though the description is already so short that at that point, it feels like I might as well just use the short description for both.
3557381
Kind of ironic about the cover art, as in this case I actually did go the extra mile and commission a picture, when I couldn't find an appropriate piece for the story.
3577696 One thing I do when splitting up sentences is use however. However can be placed in between clauses flanked with commas, so it sounds a little more natural than starting a sentence with a preposition. Like so;
I'm not sure that phrasing the sentence as a question adds much, but I suppose it might be a style choice to match the tone of the story. The second sentence does feel weak for a lot of reasons. One way you might help it have more impact is by using it to answer the question from the previous sentence.
Everything you've said about BLTN's description is completely fair from where I'm sitting. Years on, I'm still training myself to give ideas the separate sentences they deserve. I was also absolutely overcompensating on the vagueness this time around. Was it in service of a twist?... Yeah, I suppose it was. I honestly never thought about it like that.
Anyway, this has informed future descriptions, and I thank you for it.