ait Reynolds makes me laugh whenever I read her Blurb Hokey Pokey quote: “You put your protagonist in. You leave the best friend out. You put the problem in. You leave the twist out. You do the Hokey Pokey and leave 'em on a cliffhanger. That’s what it’s all about.”

How to write a blurb 101: You put your main character in, you don’t need that secondary character. Detail the conflict with just enough to get the questions rising inside the reader’s head but not too much that you begin answering those questions or deflating any of the big moments in the book. Hook with a last sentence that drives them panting to open the book and start reading. That’s the general idea. But there’s a lot more to it because we have to contend with more than just the back cover blurb.

Before we talk about the three types of blurbs, there two things we need to preface with:

1. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter a whit if a blurb is long or short or somewhere in-between. We have a misconception these days that being short by definition makes a blurb good and effective while a long blurb is by default in opposition of that, but both flavor-of the-day trends are illusions that you can’t afford to rest on. An effectively good blurb means it’s both well-written and makes a person want to read the story inside the pages, not just the back—want to enough to actually pay money to do it. Promotional considerations are the major and the main reason for having short blurbs.
2. The only part of that we’re going to deal with here is the summary of the book.

THREE TYPES OF BLURBS

An effectively good blurb has two parts for a single title and three for a series. The discussion on series blurbs is included after the other two that are needed for absolutely every blurb.

Part 1: High-Concept Blurbs

The only difference between a back cover blurb and a high-concept blurb is usually length and frequently the high-concept blurb is much more generalized than the back cover blurb. Almost always, it’s a single sentence that captures the essence of the story with a solid punch of intrigue straight to the gut. An example of an intriguing high-concept blurb from a book:

If you look at this closely, you’ll notice this sentence has two components: A who and a what. The who could refer to a protagonist or an antagonist or any general concept. In the book world, this is usually the main character but it could also be a group of people, a culture, a planet, whatever—essentially who has the most at risk that the reader is rooting for—the main driving force in the story, whether good or evil.

This is a basic formula we can use in the crafting of our high-concept blurbs. For a high-concept blurb, the goal is to come up with one to two sentences, something utterly intriguing. Here’s the first section of our Blurb Worksheet:

Now let’s tag the high-concept blurb we mentioned earlier so you can see how it fits into the formula. I’ve chosen a hard one because literally there isn’t a high-concept blurb that can’t fit into this two-part-component formula, but it might be difficult to initially figure out who’s who and what’s what:

Part 2: Back Cover Blurbs

At its crux, a back cover blurb strives to be a concise, breathtaking summary of your entire story that includes the major internal and external conflicts and the goals and motivations of the main character(s). Let’s define the terms that will be on the next section of our Blurb Worksheet:

External and Internal Conflict, and Goals and Motivations

External conflict (plot) is the central tangible or outer problem standing squarely in the character’s way that must be faced and solved by that character. Internal conflicts are emotional problems brought about by external conflicts that make a character reluctant to achieve a goal because of her own roadblocks. In fiction, character conflicts are why plot conflicts can’t be resolved. Your first spark of the story in your mind will usually suggest what the character’s conflicts are, and many times they’re based on someone or something threatening what the character cares about passionately.

Internal conflicts are all about character, and external conflicts are all about plot, but both belong to the main character. After all, if both didn’t affect her in some profound way, they wouldn’t be conflicts for her and therefore wouldn’t even be part of her story. Additionally, it’s your job as the writer to give the character incentives (specifically, goals and motivations) not to give up until everyone is safe and the main character has what she was fighting for. Your character can’t simply react to conflict—she must act in the face of it. What exactly does she stand to gain if she does something? What will she lose if she doesn’t do it?

Focused on the goal, the character is pushed toward the external conflict by believable, emotional, and compelling conflicts and motivations that won’t let her quit before she reaches the goal. The intensity of her anxiety creates worry and anticipation in the reader. Those are the very things you want to highlight in a powerful, succinct way in a back cover blurb.

Now that we know what a back cover blurb needs to include, we can use a short form to provide the jumping-off point in crafting one of our own on the Blurb Worksheet:

Once you’ve filled out the form above completely, you can inject your story specifics into this formula (note: you would fill this out for each major character):

Let’s do this a little backwards and fill out the forms for The Woman in Black by Susan Hill (some sections aren’t included if the book didn’t have it).

Here’s the final high-concept blurb and back cover blurb for this book:

Part 3: Series Blurbs

At its crux, a series blurb strives to be a concise, breathtaking summary of your entire series that includes the major internal and external conflicts and the goals and motivations of the main character(s), perhaps as a group or some other concept (the driving force of the story). A series blurb will be a generalized sentence or paragraph that accurately covers, reflects and describes every single book in the series. A series blurb can make or break the sale of an entire set of books. Many publishers and certainly readers buy the first book in the series and every single one after it based on a sizzling series blurb that convinces them they absolutely have to read not only the first book but all of them in that set!

Let’s first establish that the point of a series is that readers who follow it from one book to the next will get a richer, more complex, and emotional experience than those who only read a single book in the series. Those readers will understand the subtle nuances that one-time browsers won’t pick up on. For that reason, the author has to make enough vital connections from one book to the next in their series or readers will lose the purpose in reading that series at all. Therefore, the first step to writing a series blurb is to figure out what ties the books together.

Types of Series Ties

If each book in a series doesn’t somehow tie together or have a touchstone that helps the reader figure out how they’re connected, you could hardly call these books a series. There are three distinct types of series ties, but always keep in mind that authors frequently combine one or more of these in a single series.

• Recurring Character or Central Group of Characters
• Premise/Plot Series
• Setting Series

The series ties will also help us figure out what the “who” aspect is of our series when filling out the next section of the Blurb Worksheet.

Finding the Focus of a Series: Story and Series Arcs

A story arc is introduced, developed, and concluded in each individual book of a series. In a series story, a story arc is short-term because it will be neatly tied-up in a single book within the series.

A series arc is the long-term thread that’s introduced in the first book in the series, is developed in some way in every single subsequent book, but is only fully resolved in the final book in the series.

The series arc is usually separate from the individual story arcs, but both are crucial and must fit together seamlessly. As an example, in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the story arc is the chamber of secrets plotline. The overall series arc, in the most simplified terms, is good (Harry) overcomes evil (Voldemort)—and that’s true for every book in that series. The series arc runs beneath the individual story arcs in each book.

Certain types of series don’t really need series arcs because they’re open-ended. No clear end is in sight, and therefore there is less need for a tightly delineated series arc that must resolve in the final book. In an open-ended series (such as some sleuth mysteries with a single recurring character—i.e., Hercule Poirot and the like), each book in the series is a standalone.

The series blurb should tell readers how all the books in that series are connected. If the series blurb is done well enough, those sentences will accurately reflect what every book in the series is about in a concise, intriguing summary. If readers don’t understand the premise of your series in the blurb, they may not bother try reading the first book.

Now that we know what a series blurb needs to include, we can use a short form to provide the jumping-off point in crafting one of our own on the Blurb Worksheet:

We’re going to use a modified variation of our “formula” for the series blurb:

Note that resolutions are not usually needed in the series blurb, since you don’t want to defuse the intrigue or tension, but sometimes a resolution will work well in the overall series blurb. Play with it to see all the alternatives.

Let’s fill out the form and formula, this time with The Expanse Series. The books don’t technically have a series blurb—not a definitive one anyway—the way the TV series does, but I’ve put together a slightly hybridized version below.

We’re going to use a slightly modified variation of our blurb “formula”:

Here’s the blurb for The Expanse Series:

Remember the axiom we fixed in our minds earlier: If the blurb isn’t effectively good, making you want to read the story inside the pages, it won’t work. The goal is to get readers to read the book. Apparently, Tolstoy downed a gallon or two of vodka while trying to write the blurb for War and Peace. Truly, there is no better way to test an author’s ability to write concisely in a way that engages and entices the reader into wanting more than with these three different types of blurb. Time to get down to that Blurb Hokey Pokey.

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In addition to being a popular writing reference instructor and writer, professional blurbologist and freelance editor, Karen Wiesner is the award-winning author of over 130 titles in nearly every genre. Her newest fiction releases are entries in her Friendship Heirlooms Series (Christian romance), Adventures in Amethyst Series (romance/suspense), and Peaceful Pilgrims (comedic women’s fiction). Her newest writing reference is Writing Blurbs That Sizzle—And Sell!. Karen runs a Blurb Service for Authors where you can find information about signing up for her workshops. When she isn’t writing, she can be found reading, playing videogames or piano, and visiting her son—also a writer and copyeditor—where he attends college. Visit her website at www.karenwiesner.com, and connect with her on Facebook.