Write Epic Summaries! Get More Clicks on Your Fanfic (How to Write Fanfiction)
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- Опубліковано 8 жов 2024
- Do you struggle with summaries? You are not alone. How do you take a whole entire story and then just... condense down to 50 words? That's what today's video is all about!
Worksheet: thecoramaria.t...
A little about me: I am a creative writing graduate, professional copywriter, and self-proclaimed fanfic writer extraordinaire with over 9 years of experience here to help you live your best fanfic writing life! Subscribe to my UA-cam channel for your fortnightly dose of dreamy fanfiction tips. 💞✍️
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a summary format that i adore and probably wll never get enough of is the
"passage from fic in italics that helps give a sense of voice/mood/setting/etc
or:
short, somewhat casual explanation of the premise"
u deserve much more views & subscribers! you’ve single-handedly saved my life in the fan fiction writing department. thank u so much for sharing your knowledge with the world & putting in the effort :)
Aww that's such high praise 🥰 Thank-you so much
I haven't published a fanfiction in 10 years. I'm about to publish a trilogy I've been writing and I haven't had to summarize my work in a long time. Your videos have been helpful in getting me back up to speed with the publishing end of fanfiction. Thank you.
I'm really glad to hear that 🥰
As someone who got back into the game after a 20-year hiatus, welcome back, and I hope the journey has treated you well!
Hi this was really helpful with writing my summary! Thank you so much for creating this video!
The fanfiction I’m working on is a oc reincarnation insert for Black Clover. (To clarify an OC is reborn as an OC) the OC is based of my friend and the magic she and she would want to have.
My sloppy summary:
Woman who finally had her life on track, gets stab and is reincarnated in the work that starts her whole self-care journey. Being reborn in said work as a previously non-existing twin of her favorite character with overpowered magic does not make up for the fact that her family is trash and the main villain mastermind is trying to get her killed. When fail assassination gives her the opportunity to get out of them and live her own life, she books it for the hills, hoping to leave the story completely.
Real summary:
"So let me get this straight, you are Nyssa Silva. Nyssa Silva as in the fifth Silva sibling?"
"Technically yes... I go by the name Genesis now though, prefer it that way."
- - -
"I shouldn't have existed in the first place."
- - -
One life of crappy siblings should be enough right? Especially when you finally got your toxic free own life started going for you. Well, Nyssa got the short end of the stick when she met her untimely demise and was reborn with an all but sure second set. Don't test her, these OP powers only bring her more troubles! She’s looking at you Lucius, stop trying to kill her! Well at least she has Noelle's back and Noelle has her's... right? Right?!
That's it she's out of here! Where is the hair dye?!
I don’t know if I’ll ever actually publish this a when I do it’ll probably be on Wattpad because the BC fanfic community is more active there. But this is the first time I feel satisfied with my summary, so I’m being a bit proud and showing it off.😅
(It’s not posted anywhere)
Bunny boy tries to go to space through portal, gets mini bunny instead
Nice work on the first exercise!
I’m planning to write my dream fanfic for quite a while now (and I mean like for over an year) but I’ve only gotten to the bare beginning, not even the part where our main two characters meet and form a bond yet
I’m still thinking of new chapter ideas daily, new additions and changing stuff which I’m not proud of because I do need to atleast try writing the first 5 chapters or the basic idea of it but the ideas are all over the place scattered with a rough timeline
My dream fanfic isn’t anything angsty, unlike most I love the fluffiest fluff you’d ever see with maybe a bit of angst that drives bit of a conflict but my fanfic is a romance, slice of life, inspired by those shoujo romance mangas, in a Medieval inspired AU (not accurate medieval times tho)
Concept is instead of a typical AU of Royalty x Knight/peasant (which are some of the most popular AUs in this ship) it’s a knight x Baker AU, a meet cute, friends to lovers, kinda slowburn? The feelings aren’t realized within the first 6+ chapters, but as it goes on, it’s one sided and the other is oblivious until they also gain a crush but doesn’t realize it REALLY later on, yk
They meet when the knight is on his job on his first day guarding the town, was hungry and visits this bakery and slowly starts visiting everyday until they form a bond and grow closer as friends, the knight is so hardworking and loves to help out, the baker is a energetic fella who is passionate about their bakery as it’s a family bakery started by her late grandfather, she loves her family who are traveling all over the kingdom to manage other locations as she manages the original location, sometimes her sister visits
If I had to summarize it, it would be like
“(Character A) has just became a knight like he always wanted! As he was guarding the town he met a peculiar baker, (character B). Overtime their bond grows, with their friendship growing stronger through their adventures”
Does it sound corny? I think l before it was simpler but I forgot
That sounds like a really sweet story! I do have some feedback on the summary though: you mentioned that you have a little angst to drive the plot forward, so to catch more readers' attention, I def recommend you mention that in the summary ☺
Started watching your videos today and I'm happy that someone is making videos for Fanfiction. I write it as well, mainly on wattpad, and had been debating on making videos about it on my channel due to barely any video content for the topic.
It's such an underserved niche meaning that there's plenty of room for growth. I say go for it! And since your main platform is Wattpad whereas I post on FFN and AO3, you'll be able to cover some of the platform-specific topics that people may be interested in but I don't have the knowledge or experience to answer 🙂
Did you find this video helpful in solving your summary struggles? Do you have any questions or need something clarified? I'm ready and willing to answer~! 💖
(Not finished or posted yet)
Tiny traumatized man meets normal-sized tramautized man. They meet vaguely and tiny man trusts normal man slightly more and- OH MY GOD WHY IS HIS LEG SNAPPED IN HALF
Chromedome and Rewind? (I can't think of many couples in my fandoms that have a height gap like that, and could have one of them survive getting his leg snapped in half.)
@Tail_sez I should've mentioned it's an au. They're the same height in Canon 😅 it's actually Giyu and Sanemi from KNY
I just KNEW you were a Twilight Princess fan! One video in and I could sense it🤩 Ironically I’m here for a TP fanfic I’ve devised for years!
Yeah wooo a fellow TP fan! What's your fic about? 👀
@@CoraMaria Oh Hylia, is that a loaded question lol😅 I’ve had the idea going since I was 6, which was around the time the game released lol. Long story short, the ever so matured version of the story follows one of the regent’s daughters, who so happened to be visiting the castle at the time of the attack. She of course escapes Hyrule Castle, with the intent of freeing her father, the Princess, and Hyrule itself. Basically it follows a separate storyline from that of the Hero of Twilight, one focusing more on the Resistance aspect, and delving more into the arcane lore of the Interlopers through one of my characters, who discovers that he is a direct descendant that wasn’t cast into the Twilight Realm long ago like his forebears. I just love the game so much, I’ve been obsessed with it since my very first childhood memories!😍 Thanks for asking!
@@Outofthisreality Wishing you all the luck with writing it!
Summary- headmaster of Hogwarts Starts experiments during war which go wrong creating demons. Demon slayers defeat demons centuries later while blue spider lily is found a mixed with stray demon blood creating the baseline of quirks. Main character has the quirk to see and guide souls which allows him to learn from said souls, learning from people who are from both timelines.
Harry Potter x Demon Slayer x MHA
Badly describing my fic:
The Dokis are gay, but get this: for each other. They struggle with life sometimes but it’s ok because the author wanted to write something fluffy so they end up happy. They also end up together.
For Uh
The four most important characters
There are only four important characters lol, and I try to make them equally important, with the exception of Sayori who is the protagonist
“Alright everyone! Who here has heard of a polyamorous relationship?”
I’m not quite sure of any other line from my fic
@@zephyr_heart Sometimes a line lifted from the confession scene can work really well, but I can understand leaving it out if you want to avoid spoilers.
You are so inviting it feels so much comfy!!
Aww I try 🥰
Yeah and you are doing great!! Your content is always a treat!! :)
Omygosh the work sheet is wonderful!!!
I'm so glad you found it useful!
@@CoraMaria thank you for making it! :)
Love Kip!
I can’t express enough how much I adore your videos. My bad summary - which is a mix of ocs meet canon characters as they try to travel to the same destination together - would have to be; Antagonistic, self loathing, perfectionist accidentally ends up half way across his continent after being unintentionally stolen, along with a chaotic seven year old, and must relinquish pride and rely on two lovestruck hero’s to ensure a safe return home.
I really liked your little summary and I’m definitely checking out your fic. Though my knowledge of the games and content is vague due to having them on my to be played list since forever.
As for relationship dynamics, we got; a loveable, chaotic seven year old called Kristina with the inherited ability to pick up on peoples intentions. Her non-biologically related uncle Danny, who is as stubborn as he is caring, and then the two canon characters from Assassin X Demon King by Brittany Hart. The ex-assassin Sal, who is determined to save as many lives as he’s stolen and his completely besotted companion, the former demon king - though quite human - Kain. Who is also the first person Sal saved.
Key events of first 3 chapters; 1, Ocs are wearily wandering the path to the nearest village, backstory scattered about as to where, when and why. Both get startled, hide behind bush. 2, Ocs and canon characters meet. Food is sourced.
3. Nighttime and nightmares are abound.
Aww thanks for the kind words and your participation in the comment exercises! Sounds like you've got a project you're really passionate about 💖
I think my longfics are easy enough to understand if you're reading fandom-blind, though some of the foreshadowing and plot twists (especially in 'The Light Invasion') might be less impactful since they rely on subverting stuff from canon. They'd still be easy enough to follow, though.
@@CoraMariaIt was super fun to get involved. I’ve definitely got your fic on my tbr, I can always research a little about the canon plot / world building before diving in, but I’m so excited for it to be my first experience of delving into the fandom.
@@magicinthemundane9527 I only just saw this and I'm flattered~!
I just wanted to say that I adore your videos about fanfiction and they always make me feel more motivated to work on my fanfics 💗
Thank-you so much~! Always happy to help 😊
I’m bout to sob because I just realised how odd this is going to be
A demon dies to his human brother, the demon’s human boyfriend becomes evil after putting on a crown that the demon had corrupted, and now it’s angsty kitty-cat fighting
You have the bad summary which means you have the basic concept! That's progress! Congrats! /gen
Liked the video, this is my attempt at a summary; anyone is free to tear it apart:
Bad Summary:
"Blitzø is sick and has to let Mr. and Mrs. Couple Goals run IMP for the day. Unfortunately, Moxxie and Millie can’t agree on how to do the hit and things go sour fast. Soon enough, M&M have to make up quick when their mark turns out to be much worse than a serial killer."
Actual Summary:
"When Blitzø is too sick to work, Moxxie and Millie are put in charge of I.M.P. for a day. When a recently deceased sinner shows up and orders a hit on an unknown serial killer, Moxxie takes the lead on solving the murder mystery. However, the usually happy couple starts to have major disagreements on how to do the job. Worse, when their target turns out to be much more depraved than expected, he marks the lovers for death. Moxxie and Millie will have to harmonize their differences, and shed a lot of blood along the way."
Helluva Boss Fan??? Me too! :D
@@CherriiBerriis Sorry, not anymore. However, you can consider the summary I made as up for adoption!
@@Transit_Raccoon Oh okay! ^_^
Here is a sloppy summary of one of my fanfics:
"A boy who tries to go through life with an emotionally abusive and neglectful dad. He also has a secret admiration for his royal cousin, but that admiration all disappeared once he horribly misjudged said cousin's popularity, as well as due to his self-esteem problems in courtesy of his dad, seeing him as a threat against the vulnerabilities the boy doesn't want to show to anyone."
I'm still thinking about how I should summarize it though. I hope you are able to get the context of this fanfic based on that summary alone
YOU HAVE TUMBLR!? The second I habe it I'll follow u
Ahh thank-you so much!
Ofc! ^^
basically all of my current summary is what you said to avoid 😆
What if Amelia Pond wasn't the only one in the house that night? What if Amelia had another best friend? A girl of the same age who's more than a little out of the ordinary. What will happen when the man from their childhood whisks them both away to a life of freedom and adventure? And how will it all end? A tragedy or a Happily Ever After? this is the story of Isobel Reed.
Its mainly reliant on the reader knowing the context if the fandom
Love this, thx
No problemo~!
Hehe great advice, as always!!
💖
^^
So, i got something that i like, but i think that it needs something else... what do y'all think?
"10 years.
10 years since he escaped from the exile, 10 years since he started a new lif- sorry, my bad!, 10 years since he started living.
And yet, here he was again, in the same lands from where he ran, but what he could do?, this was the most near place, and of course he didn't want his daughter to die."
So far- Our Flag Means Death Fic (post s1 fic, spoilers for s1 in summary. You don't need to know much about the show for this. Essentially, they're pirates doing pirate things). I have 80ish k written already and I'm about to go into my first editing phase.
Genera: Horror(in the first 50% ish), Comedy, Action Adventure, pre-romance. Sequel planned that establishes the relationship more, as this could become a 200k fic if not.
Bad Summary: A spirit time travels to prevent his own death, first by murdering the man, then by trying to change the bastard's mind. Sadly, the fucker who killed him is a repressed goblin of a man, unwilling to change. After months of unwilling friendship, the goblin man finds his own self-worth and actually fights against his destiny.
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Characters: Izzy (protag), Boone (ghost OC). Enemies, to friends, to lovers. All characters in show in background, all canon relationships are background pairings.
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Stakes: Izzy is destined to sacrifice himself, along with 30 others(including Boone), for the Crew of the Revenge on November 22nd, 1718. Boone the spirit needs to stop this, luckily he's been forced to March 10th, 1718. Months before the incident. Izzy learns the truth about 50% of the way through the fic. His priorities go from not dying, to getting the Revenge ready for his death. Turning a crew of 'idiots' into REAL pirates. He never considering changing his future. Stakes come from the crew needing to learn to survive without Izzy, Izzy's destined death, and Boone's multiple failed plans to prevent what's going to happen.
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SUMMARY
"Izzy Hands knew his life would change when Edward welcomed Bonnet back aboard; he never expected this. Secluded to the night watch, he soon realizes that he's not as alone as he'd thought. To prevent a future never meant to be, Izzy must dive into himself to change his fate. The ghosts of the past and future haunt us all, especially at night."
63 words, 50 exactly without the last sentence.
First Sentence: Establishes timeline as many in this fandom tend to veer either pre or post canon. Warns that this fic is entirely outside the realm of current canon.
Second Sentence: Basic setup in the first 3 chapters of the fic.
Third Sentence: Establishes that Izzy might be fucked? I have an issue with this sentence, as Izzy doesn't learn the truth (that Boone is a spirit meant to warn him) till mid-way through the second act. Does this spoils that reveal, or would that allow a reader to see the building blocks I'm setting down? For example, Boone knows more than he should, warning Izzy away from doing stupid shit ect. Would this let the reader feel like they know more than our protagonist (which is something I LOVE).
Fourth sentence: Cheeky. I thought of it and felt like a clever little gremlin rubbing my hands together. Could be deleted, but it helps set the tone for the fic.
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So that's the summary. I wrote a story where Izzy accidentally kills a guy in the future, so the guy haunts Izzy's past self to prevent his own death. The injury mentioned, a gun shot wound to the knee(takes place in chapter 2), was caused by the ghost to fuck Izzy over. Boone never expected the crew old Izzy had described as 'Selfish Worthless Assholes' would help him recover. Izzy is forced into night shift to help him heal the leg, and so he doesn't piss the crew of the Revenge off any more.
The ghost goes from hating the fucker to doing his best to delay the inevitable. Helping Izzy heal and trying his best to make Izzy form healthy bonds and stay with his new found family. In the end, Izzy does go off to do the thing he's destined to do. But thanks to the changes he'd made in his own life, things turn out differently. (In reality, Boone just forced Izzy to be nicer around the crew. So when Izzy struggled, they were still there to offer help. In the previous timeline he was a piece of shit who pushed everyone away).
How does this flow for you? Again, my tone is very close to the show, which is a Romantic Comedy, that I'm throwing horror elements into.
Loved the video! You're tips really helped me out, and helped me cut down my summary down to 1 paragraph! If you have any advise, I would love to hear them.
Wow thank-you for sharing your process with me! It proves that my content is actually helpful.
I think this phrase is a bit of a trip-up, as it contains a double negative: "To prevent a future never meant to be" contains "prevent" and "never-meant-to-be" and I think it's confusing because why would you have to actively prevent something that's not meant to be in the first place? If a future isn't meant to be, then I'd think it could only come to be through knowing intervention. I dunno if my reasoning makes sense, but I would probably phrase that sentence as "To prevent future tragedy from repeating itself".
I also think that if Izzy going back in time to prevent their own death is integral to the premise and happens within the first few chapters, then it's worth including that in the summary. It can actually establish suspense early, since the reader knows it's coming and just can't look away until it does.
Anyways, hope my feedback helps!
would you be able to give feedback/criticism on my summary? i feel like it’s too long but i’ve already edited like 20 words out and i’m not sure how to make it shorter. no worries if not
Gina decided on five (plus one secret addition) rules for Amy to break, before she could be considered cool. If Amy did follow through, then she’d suffer with the burden of /knowing/ what she had done. If not, she would leave Gina’s life forever. There was no way it could go wrong.
Amy had decided she could use this chance to prove to Gina that they should be friends and prove to everyone that she was cool. Nothing more would come of it, no consequences would really affect her much.
Things didn’t work out as either had planned.
Now, for once I'll take your advice and write down one thing you asked, because I know that it's beneficial.
So, the main characters in my story and their dinamic...
I have an ongoind drabble collection, one that featured 1k or 2k words long stories already, so it's pretty much a short story collection (that has 53 stories so far and 30k words in total), but I kept the name.
It is centered around a a strange ship from a big fandom, and this is pretty much not even considered by most fans because of the differences between the characters that make most people think that they'd never be good together. My idea on the other hand is that they do have much in common and that's why they would be good together. They are both intelligent know-it-alls in their own unique ways, they both deeply care about others, even if they can get mad in cases when someone is going against their worldviews, both of them are pretty hard to get along with, but the few relationships they have with others are life-lasting.
I've been running in the same circle for quite some time with their stories, because I alwasy followed one formula: Character A has a problem that they can't solve on their own, Character B comes along and helps, mostly with thinking outside the box, or taking Character A's personal (and often mental) struggles into consideration to find the best solution. Then the end of the little, self-contained story gives the reader a peek into why they would be happy together despite all the signs that tell otherwise. In later stories about them, I made a bit more effort to use other things and not repeat myself that much.
I feel quite bad for not updating the story since about mid January, but I know that it's okay because personal and education/work related things should always come first. I made a short series of fanarts of them in the meantime, so I did not neglect them, but I'm often thinking about new ideas that I want to write. Also, the summary for is literally just a descrption that sais that it's a collection of stories about this specific ship, but in this scenario I feel like it sais more about what to expect.
It sounds like you've put a lot of thought into your ship's dynamic and chemistry! And no stress if you haven't updated in a while. The fact that you're still thinking about your story and working on it in little ways is already a great sign, so good on you, I say!
im gonna badly explain my fic so here i go:
mr malewife got hanahaki disease but survived. miss sunshine (mr malewife's crush) got hanahaki disease after knowing mr malewife used to like her. everybody dies.
im sorry if i did it wrong aha,,,
also second exercise: kaveh and nilou (ship), kaveh and alhaitham (rivalry), kaveh and traveler (friendship)
You didn't do it wrong! Thanks for commenting 💖
@@CoraMaria no problem! keep creating content cora! it helps me and other fic writers a lot
Summarying is hard when there's an important character from the protags backstory who doesn't show up until chapter 80 out of around 125 and it's best to let your readers know about a ship in advance. 😅
That can usually be taken care of with the relationship tags. You can also set expectations of when the other half of the ship shows up in your opening A/Ns.
What about writing summaries of the first fourth of the work?
If you don't know how to write a summaries, then you don't know why you wrote a fan-fiction. A fan-fiction has a reason to exist.
It depends on how long the work is. 1/4 of a drabble is going to be way shorter than 1/4 of a 1 million word epic, and in both situations, and in those cases, explaining what happens in that first quarter would be impractical. That might work for works around the same length as your typical published novel, but even then, book blurbs tend to be longer than what the average fic reader expects a summary to be. They're usually scrolling through a page of results with at least a dozen other summaries competing for their attention.
To me, the hardest part about writing a summary is not that I don't know what my story is about, but rather having to select the right aspects of the premise and make them sound exciting in only 50 words or so. It's especially hard to do for my epic-lengths. You have to contend with the fact that the reader hasn't come across your story before and thus has no context (except the context of canon), so you have to choose those details that sound intriguing without said context.