We'll be tackling blurbs today. Blurbs are the summaries on the back of books. Their purpose? To get your reader to read the book.

Many writers struggle with either revealing too much or too little. The balance takes a lot of practice.

Note: When someone looks at the Discover section, they only see the first few lines of a blurb. This makes it all the more important to grab your readers' attention.

So, let's play Spot the Mistakes. Here is a blurb I made for a Bad Boy/Good Girl story:

"Katie, I love you."

Katherine Ann Smith is an ordinary 17 year old girl, but when she met Damien Scott, Katie couldn't help but to fall in love with his devilish ways... However, he's a player who would never notice Katie. But, what if he does? Katie and Damien are match made in heavan. Will the two become a couple? Or will their love fall through? Read on to find out.

Let's list off the mistakes:

-Using middle name

-Not spelling out seventeen

-Overuse of rhetorical questions

-"ordinary girl"

-Overuse of starting sentences with conjuctions and transitions

-Run on sentences

-"Read on..."

-Tense switching

-Misspelling of word "heaven"

-Ellipses used wrong

-Use of dialogue

-Wall of Text

So many summaries make at least a few of these mistakes. I'll go over each one individually.

-Using Middle Name

Do we care? No! Get to the juicy stuff.

Unless it matters to the story, cut it out. It rarely matters, by the way.

-Not spelling out seventeen

This is basic stuff, guys! Now, people have different rules on writing out numbers, but generally, any number under 100 should be written out. I see this so often it's sad. It's understandable if someone is not a native speaker, but if you are, there is a problem.

-Overuse of rhetorical questions

Okay, this is one area of debate. However, most agree that multiple rhetorical questions wreck the effect. Don't ask questions the readers know the answers to. In fact, just stay away completely until you are a blurb writing master.

-"ordinary girl"

This is a cliche. Also, who wants to read about an ordinary person? Even before the story, the characters should be interesting.

-Overuse of starting sentences with conjuctions and transitions

Conjunctions are like dessert. Just a little does a lot. One or two of them are fine. Any more, and it weakens your sentences. "But" is the go to word for summaries. It has its time and place, yet when used too often it's a crutch.

-Run on sentences

There's only one in here (the first one,) but this crops up a lot. A lot. It's like the writers don't need to breath and can keep on talking and talking but don't consider how badly it effects writing, yet they still do it anyways, even though it's something you learn by by the time you're ten!

See what I mean? Proofreading will take care of this. Especially reading aloud. If you can't read a sentence in one breath, it's too long.

-"Read on..."

Nothing screams amateur more than this. Your blurb should imply this.

-Tense switching

Confession time: I had problems with tense. I still occaisonally struggle with it, so I know how hard it is. It'll put readers off. It just doesn't flow right.

-Misspelling of word "heaven"

This is a sign your writing will be full of these simple mistakes. Spell check is your friend.

-Ellipses used wrong

We have this magical thing called Google. Use it.

-Use of dialogue

Unless it's a really, really cool quote, don't do it. We don't know your characters yet. We don't care, to be honest.

-Wall Of Text

This is a relatively mild example of this, but have some people heard of the Enter key? White space is your friend. The Great Wall of Text will keep your readers away.

These are some common pitfalls of blurbs, but how do you write one, anyway?

Do you remember the Five W's: Who, What, When, Where and Why? This is what you want to include.

Take the blurb above. Let's fill those w's out:

Who: Katie and Damien

What: Falling in Love

When: Modern day

Where: High School, Anytown, USA

Why: Katie falls for Damien's antics, but he doesn't notice her since she is a good girl.

Now, sometimes setting is implied. If you don't mention a time period or location, most readers will assume it is present day. If your MC is a teen, people will assume the story takes place in a school.

Another way to write a blurb is to start with one sentence. A one sentence summary. Let's use the same story from above:

Katie never imagined that she would fall for a bad boy, let alone that Damien would return her affections.

Now, elaborate on the details. If you can't summarize the vague ideas for your story in a single sentence, you might have too much going on. That's a story problem, not a blurb problem.

Onto the hook. You want some juicy bait to lure your readers in. This is up to you. What makes your story interesting? What makes it stand out?

Here's a challenge for you guys. Can you rewrite this blurb about Katie and Damien to be engaging, unique and original? Post it in the comments, and I'll critique it.

Before I end this off, I would like to talk about something: POV for blurbs. Generally, I'd suggest third person. However, if you look at my novel's blurb, it's written in first. There are exceptions to every rule. First person is generally harder to show not tell in.

If you're a novice or writing blurbs is not your strong point, you should start with third. The reason I did first person is that I felt I could get readers through my MC's voice.

Keep Calm and Write on!

P.S. I covered most of the clichés here, but if I missed any, feel free to comment and I'll add them here!