When people want to figure out whether a movie is worth watching, what will they do first? Most people would check the introduction, or watch the trailer. When it comes to reading books, the answer is to check the description.
A description is just like a trailer. When readers are not familiar with your story, a well-designed “trailer” would do the trick to help attract them. If you don’t have a clear picture of the description, you can read some other stories’ description or watch some movie trailers to get inspired.
To stand out among all these stories, you can try to make the description catchy and leave readers wondering what will happen next. But keep in mind, don’t make it a summary of your story.
Here’s some useful tips to help you make good descriptions:
1.Make your story pop with impressive elements: revenge, betrayal, supernatural power, or anything that can draw attention. Every story must have a “selling point”, and the job of description is to sell it.
2.Drop some hint about the climax. But remember, you are not writing the outline and don’t reveal everything. Descriptions are the marketing tool to draw reader’s attention. The ultimate purpose is to get readers to read the book. No one will read it if they already know the end. In this case, don’t just reveal everything.
3.Get feedback and revise. You probably won’t get it right the first time. Why not try to share the description to friends or family members to get feedback? A subjective review would be very helpful for you to find the shortcomings.
To learn more about writing description, you can also check the course from Stary Writing Camp: How to Create the Description.