100 Things Challenge #2: Writing Blurbs for Things I Never Intend to Actually Write
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Working in a library, I read a lot of back covers and dust jackets--you know, the little summaries that publishers put to tell the reader what the book is going to be about and entice them to read more. I've come to the conclusion that there's an under appreciated art to this, and one day I might be able to make some money writing the back cover summaries for some publishing house.
I get a lot of story ideas just as a matter of course, and not all of them are actually things I want to write or invest a lot of time in (at least not at the moment--some of them might be revisited later).
For example, here's this one, for an imaginary story called "Ever After":
At age twenty, Emma met, fell in love with, and married the man of her dreams (literally). At age twenty-one, they filed for divorce. Turns out the stories were true after all: elves and humans just shouldn’t mix, and what did they know, anyway? They’d been way too young to start with; it never would have lasted even if they’d tried. Years later, Emma’s life as a photographer may not be magical, but it is satisfying in a way that doesn’t involve risking life and limb to save the kingdom, or whatever the crisis of the week is. She has her own apartment above a bakery where she gets free muffins from time to time. She’s seeing a sweet guy who seems on the verge of proposing. She loves her job. She’s happy.
Then comes the day when Puck climbs through her window with news from her ex. Quinlan’s getting remarried, and it just so happens to be elfin tradition that the former wife bless the new marriage or it can’t take place.
Emma never planned on going back to fairy land, but, yeah, sure, whatever. She’ll go to the stupid wedding. Sounds simple enough. Unfortunately, things just keep getting more and more complicated when the bride-to-be is not all that she seems, Emma’s boyfriend has a secret love for elf-girls, and was Quinlan always this overwhelmingly stupid? It’s up to Emma, Puck, and some old friends to stop the wedding, save the day, and make sure everyone lives happily ever after-though at this point they’ll settle for just making sure everyone lives.
In this case, I'm not currently all that interested in pursuing this story because the characters aren't all that fleshed out and I'm not that interested in them (how a character starts to develop in my sick little mind is a post for another day), so once I got the idea written down I just back-burnered the project. Sometimes that's all it takes to satisfy the spur of the moment urge to write. Usually I know I have to actually write a story because the characters won't leave me alone and I have actual specific scenes running through my head all day. In this case, all I had was the blurb and the basic story idea.
Other times I'll write a blurb like this purely for my own amusement factor--I'm hit with a silly idea that makes me giggle, so I'll write it down and stash it away.
For example, while I was shelving books in the young adult section, I read a lot of back covers for those girly novels aimed at teenage girls all about finding a boyfriend and getting back at the popular girls and such nonsense. Most of them were... awful. Just awful. So awful it was funny, and I was inspired (I guess you would say) to think up my own. It turned into a three-part series of fail that doesn't deserve have a title. I figure if I ever get desperate for cash I can thoroughly sell out by actually writing these and making millions.
Book One:
Five Kings may be the most mega-popular singing group on the planet with a sold-out tour and their faces plastered to the bedroom walls of almost every teenage girl in the country, but Allyson Brady isn't buying into the hype. Sure, the guys in the band are cute and their songs are really catchy, but they're just a band, and with Homecoming just around the corner, she's got other things on her mind. Like the mysterious new boy, who seems somehow strangely familiar.
Lewis Mackintosh is the youngest member of Five Kings, and for the most part life is great. He gets to tour around the country with his four best friends and sing on stage for thousands of people all chanting his name. But he's been with the group since he was thirteen, and he's starting to feel like he's missing out on some things. Like high school, a normal family life, friends who don't know he's famous, and maybe even a normal relationship outside the public eye.
When an injury gives the Kings an unexpected vacation, Lewis decides to go off the grid and visit his aunt's family and find out what he's been missing. For the first time in years no one know's he's famous, but he has to keep his head down or his cover will be blown. But his beautiful new classmate Allyson isn't making it easy.
Book Two:
Five Kings are back on tour, and youngest member Lewis Mackintosh has invited his girlfriend, normal girl Allyson Brady, to travel with them during summer vacation. It's sure to be the experience of a lifetime, but Allyson soon realizes that the life of a pop group isn't always as glamorous as it seems.
Can Allyson navigate the sometimes treacherous world backstage, or survive suddenly being in the spotlight with the press and paparazzi? Are the other Kings friends or foes? And what is she going to do about the diva Nicole, who seems determined to break her and Lewis up?
Book Three:
Life should be perfect for Allyson Brady. She's the prettiest girl in school, president of the Prom Committee, and best of all she's dating Lewis Mackintosh, the dreamiest member of the super popular singing group Five Kings. But having a pop superstar as a boyfriend isn't as wonderful as it seems. Between touring, recording, and shooting videos, Lewis is always busy. Allyson usually only gets to see her boyfriend on TV--sometimes even with other girls! To make matters worse, the rest of her class is pressuring her to use her star connections to get the Kings to sing at prom--but Allyson and Lewis's relationship might not last that long!
Meanwhile, things aren't that great for Lewis, either. Five Kings is on the verge of breaking up for good, and contractual obligations mean he can't tell anyone--not even Allyson! His mother is pressuring him to leave the group behind for a solo career, but is that really what Lewis wants? And what about the other Kings? They're supposed to be best friends, but they've been fighting more than singing. Lewis would give anything to be able to talk things over with his super smart girlfriend, but management want him to dump his "normal" girl for a starlette who will get him more publicity. Can Lewis keep his group, his friends, and his girl, or will something have to give?
Obviously I'm not interested in actually writing this nonsense because Allyson is a one-dimensional mary-sue of a character and there are two many cliches here even for me. But it's cracky and funny, and as a writing exercise there's some value here.
When I was younger one of my biggest faults as a writer was often I'd start a project with absolutely no idea where I wanted to end up. I'd just get really excited about the characters and take off. With absolutely no direction or plot line in mind, things got tangled up pretty quickly and I'd be left with something that made no sense at all that had to be abandoned or restarted after just a few pages, or it would be boring, or the characters would do stuff that later made no sense at all.
By writing or at least thinking in terms of these little blurbs I've been working on not doing that so much. Even with stories that don't seem to have much by way of plot (more on that later), I have a much clearer idea of where it's going and how it's going to get there). In general, if I can't figure out a short blurb, the story isn't ready to be written yet and needs to ruminate a bit more.
To put it in academic terms, it's like writing an abstract for a big paper. In school, one of my professors would have us write an abstract of what the paper was going to be about, which she would have to approve, to prove that we knew what we were doing and had at least a little bit of a plan. This is like that, just for creative works instead of academic ones.