Besides, you know, it having to be related to your story, what other things can you do? What garners interest? What information do you choose to include versus not?

5370366 make sure not to give away the plot-line of the story just give enough info to tease and inrest the reader

5370366
-Make it short. One sentence is often plenty. If I have to click 'read more' to see it all, it's way too long. (Links, credits, and sources and the like don't count toward that length, though.)
-It should raise questions in the reader's mind that can only be answered by reading the story, but it should not ask those questions explicitly. The description should especially not end in an explicit question, as that's very cliche and eye-roll-inducing. (ie, instead of "Will Daring Do manage to make it out of this one alive?" use "She faces a threat deadlier than any she's ever seen before." The latter raises the same question in readers' minds, without needing to state it explicitly.)
-When describing the story, use present tense regardless of what tense the story is written in.
-"Featured on (xx/xx/2016)" belongs in your blog, not on the story description. And for the love of pony, never brag about being in the 'popular box' at all. Spouting off about these things makes you look like an amateur, which doesn't reflect well on your story.
-Never say 'this is my first story' in the description. Anyone looking at it can tell (because you have only 1 story), and it's not something you want to call attention to because most people's first story sucks.
-Never tell people to be nice in the comments, tell them to upvote, or tell them not to downvote, et cetera. By posting it publicly on the site, you're asking for feedback, so you should accept whatever feedback it gets. If you don't want to know how people feel about it, don't publish it.

5370366

What "garners interest" is an interesting story concept. The description is just the pitch.

The description should tell me what I'm dealing with: What is the premise, which characters are immediately involved, and (at least vaguely) what sort of conflict do they face. If your story is to my interest, that should be enough.

Please don't be vague and poetic without actually describing the story at all, I can't stand descriptions like that. Have faith in your concept and tell me what you have written. Get me to care.

5370366 My tip: Learn from published novels and other written works. Novel summaries are great things too look at and learn what should be included and what about it catches your eye.

5370374
Yep, like movie trailers and what-not, right?

5370391
Ooh, thank you for these. I didn't think about one sentence being all that's needed. Come to think of it, the title and chapters themselves help to garner interest just as much as the description itself.

I just remembered that there was a story titled Go East and it's description was literally just "Rainbow dash flies East." I've never actually read the story so I don't know how much relevance the description has, but if it works, then really is brilliantly simple.

5370421
There was a tip I learned that said that author's notes in the description are not necessary, and may even detract from appeal. (Saying "this is a self-insert" isn't needed because the reader won't really know who the author is anyway, unless know IRL.)

5370422
Yes, that was something I did while I was think of how to write some of my story's descriptions. However, I avoid accidentally reading too much into it that I end up using parts of someone's description as a template.

5370425
Yep... usually I take the 'short description' and copy/paste that directly into the 'long description', add a link to the cover image artist or whatnot, and that's plenty.

Generally, the description only needs to be long if you're writing an AU world that's very different than the normal world of MLP ... and even then, you should strive to make it as concise as possible.

5370425

Ooh, thank you for these. I didn't think about one sentence being all that's needed. Come to think of it, the title and chapters themselves help to garner interest just as much as the description itself.

I just remembered that there was a story titled Go East and it's description was literally just "Rainbow dash flies East." I've never actually read the story so I don't know how much relevance the description has, but if it works, then really is brilliantly simple.

Actually, that's the description for Austraeoh, the first in a ludicrously huge series of currently eight parts. And I have no idea what it's about because the author wouldn't tell me and I'm not going blind into something like that.

So, I wouldn't call it brilliant. In fact, if you ask me, this is an example of what you shouldn't do. You should not expect your readers to invest their time in your story on curiosity alone.

5370439
I'll keep this in mind. And seeing as I have a crossover-meld type world, should I introduce base parts of it as early as the story description, or should I explain it later over the course of the story? (I'm going to do the latter anyways, but I wanna know if that early showing is important.)

5370471
If it's a crossover, you should definitely at least mention what it's being crossed over with.

5370421 "unreliable narrator"

5370502
Adding to this point, whenever someone doesn't mention the crossover(s) involved in the description, searching for such a crossover by using Fimfiction's search bar probably won't even list that story in the results, thus losing out on potential readers.

5370459
Yeah, I can't really rely on curiosity, in my case. Fallout Equestria, being so prevalent in our fandom as it is, has the side-effect of making other mlp/fallout crossovers, whether they be FO:E side-stories or not, seem less interesting and seem like less worth the time when there are already dozens of other interesting stories. (Or at least that's the impression I found.)

I care that people other than my circle of friends see my story, because I put alot of time and effort into it. I'll try to find the right equilibrium.

5370502
I'm sorry. >.>
It's a fallout/mlp crossover; I don't specifically follow Fallout Equestria, but I use elements of its lore to build my own story's background.
Edit: Thank you for compiling all these tips into your first comment. Easier reading!

5370366
Actually, it gets even more complicated.

Someone actually left a comment on one of my stories saying that my
description didn't mention any canon chars. So a description is more than just an ad for the story.
I have to provide some sense of the familiar to the description or file off some serial numbers.

The story is about some OCs so naming canon chars would be misleading since they are not the main chars.
I added some locations and that was it.

5370557
I agree that canon characters should only be tagged in the character tags if they are going to be featured alot in the story. Likewise, the OC character tag does not need to be used if an OC is not in for a majority of the fic.

There's no fancy tricks or tips to a good synopsis. Just Keep it short and simple. If what happens in your story is that Twilight and Rainbow Dash go on a quest to discover a hidden temple that they learned about from a Daring Do book, then write that as your synopsis. If this was the result of a drunk night, that's fine as well, but don't ask silly questions like "Will they discover the temple?" or "what will await them on their journey?" That's about as irritating as someone asking you to pick up your coat when you're already crouched and reaching for it. These questions are already being asked by the reader, and they are to be avoided in your synopsis. Sometimes all you need is one sentence.

Keep it simple, and don't try to be too mysterious. If they like the synopsis, most times they'll like the story too. It's then your job to tell it right.

5370366
Don't make any spelling or grammar mistakes on the description. Triple and quadruple check it. Mistakes on your description sort of magnify out and set the first impression of your story. You also don't want to give away too much, but you need to let everypony know what they are getting into as well.

There are some things that really should be spelled out in the description. If there is anything that's likely to upset anypony, make sure you give a warning about it, so that hopefully anypony it would upset doesn't read it, rather than starting to read it, downvoting it, and leaving upset comments.

Figure the goal of the description is to get somepony interested in your story, and convince them to read more, but also not to make any promises it's not gonna keep...

It couldn't hurt to give somepony you're friends with the description of the story without telling 'em anything else about it, and ask them if they'd be interested in reading it based on that, and what they'd expect to be reading.

--Sweetie Belle

5370366
Oh yeah, and one more:
-It doesn't hurt to use a little self-depreciating humor, especially in stories that aren't meant to be taken super-seriously.

5370366 If your story features scat, make sure to warn about it in the description. I learned this the hard way.