An Analysis of Great Summaries and Why They Make You Want to Read On​

There have been nine threads devoted to the worst summaries fanfiction has to offer, s as good a time as any to devote one to the best summaries. There's something to be learned from these summaries, and writing them well is an instrumental skill. Not because it's what readers base their decision to read a story or not on the summary and title (although that's obviously important too), but because it's about presenting concepts to their fullest potential and being concise.

A reader sees a great blurb on the back of a book cover and cracks it open.

Why?

The writer made the premise seem interesting, yes, but knowingly or not, the reader extrapolates that someone who writes a good summary is going to write a good book, because summary-writing is a reflection of one's writing as a whole.

Control by Anonymous58
I'm sick of the manipulation, the lies and the deceit; sick of jumping to the tune of dark lords and old puppeteers. I'm cutting the strings. Innocents will pay in blood for my defiance, but I no longer care. I lost my innocence long ago. Dark!Harry

Becoming Real by point-of-tears
War is surreal, especially in the magical world. Between an evil megalomaniac, inordinate battles, and arduous training, life can become intangible. What does it take to become real again? Slash HP/SS​

You can see there's something there, right? A hint of psychological nuance in both of these summariesI love the phrase "What does it take to become real again?" It made me gave a little-known slash story a try. It disappointed, but that's not what matters. I just love the summary, and it made me remember it a year or so later.

These two summaries succeed almost by sheer language alone. Anomynous58 gives an indication of what her writing style in-story is, and conveys tone and Harry's first-person narration in a fully formed thought with a 250 word-limit, with a lyrical rhythm you see in one out of a thousand writers on FFnet. That's impressive, and goes back to the link of writing in summary and in story. Point-of-tears conveys an unbelievable weariness and numbness that's compelling.

Harry Potter and the Boy Who Lived by The Santi
Harry Potter loves, and is loved by, his parents, his godfather, and his brother. He isn’t mistreated, abused, or neglected. So why is he a Dark Wizard? NonBWL!Harry. Not your typical Harry’s brother is the Boy Who Lived story.
​

One of the all-time greats of summaries, and stories too.

It's a step above everything else because it's seizes the zeitgeist of the fandom, its history and its composition of various kinds of storylines. Right when all the Wrong-Boy-Who-Lived stories slow to a trickle, everyone's fatigued from the onslaught.

Then The Santi comes in with something that revitalizes the dead genre. It seizes that subconscious part of the reader that just feels unsatisfied and promises to deliver. Maybe a good analogy would be the theatrical release of Fight Club. It came at the right time and with the right goals. The only thing is that it takes a bit of an anti-cliche slant and not true originality. 'Oh, Harry's not abused and mistreated', it's like summaries that go, 'Oh, Daphne is not the Ice Princess of Slytherin'. It is somewhat offset by the part of him being a Dark Wizard.

Lost Time by Amerision
After his last battle with Voldemort, eighteen year old Harry wakes up in the future. He's older, next to a wife he never married and working as the Ministry of Magic's finest expert in solving murders. They tell him that he won, but Harry knows better...​

What leapt out at me was Harry being a forensics expert. Not done before, inventive, promising. Killer ending phrase too.

The Redemption of the Black Sisters by jon3776
One sister had a soul consumed by the darkest magics.Another was lost in a loveless marriage.Neither had expected the life they had ended up with and in the quiet of their souls they wanted a second chance. Now they have one. PostOOTP HarryBellaNarcissa
​

Another classic. Great language, a sense of things gone helplessly wrong, a shot at redemption. Sold.

A Stranger in an Unholy Land by serpant-sorcerer
PART I: Days before his 6th year, Harry Potter is sucked into another universe by forces not of this world. Dazed and confused, Harry finds himself in a world where his parents are alive, where Voldemort has never fallen and he is Voldemort's key enforcer​

An all-time great. The lead-up to "he is Voldemort's key enforcer" is epic.

I think I managed to nail the summaries for two of my stories and I'll write on them too, just so that I can explain my thought process when I was writing them:

To Define Treachery by Melnivone
Blind faith is easily shaken. In the Chamber of Secrets, the Horcrux-shade of a Dark Lord regains physical form and Harry finds within himself something he was never meant to know: ambition.
​

There's that important lead-in feeling as the summary builds to the word 'ambition'. Suggestion that the Hocrux becoming physical is linked to character transformation, but withholding that information.

Weaves a Hundred Ravens In His Schemes by Melnivone
Harry wrests control of his life from the Machiavellian and the darkly ambitious. The pressure is mounting, and Harry walks night-grey roads and windless havens, forging himself into a wizard worthy of a Dark Lord's fear. Neo-Independent!Harry. ​

Right? I found that killer, magic phrase: "Worthy of a Dark Lord's fear". And there's that new tag that adds Neo to Independent. Trying to capture the elusive zeitgeist of the fandom. Independent!Harry's dead, but there haven't been many great stories to show for it. So similar to what The Santi did with his story.

I try to leverage my use of language without overdoing it. "Wrests control from" is a pretty decent way to avoid saying "Harry stops listening to Dumbledore" or something like that. Just that one word carries connotations of force, of physically tearing something away. That tells you something about this Harry. I'm trying to write to that level of control and precision, down to the word.

I took things from epic poetry - night-grey roads and windless havens - and use it to try and suggest a journey like the ones in high fantasy or old epics.

What you don't want to do when using language and borrowing from literature is this:

Furious Angels by Worldmaker
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out, even to the edge of doom.​

Because what the fuck. If you're stealing Shapeskeare quotes and second-rate ones at that you're doing it wrong.

 

The Sun Dog » by enembee
I am Harry Potter and I've just destroyed everything; space, time, matter and all twenty-six dimensions of our fragile little world in the twinkling of an eye. I am Harry Potter and I have just irreparably violated Global Causality. Take that Hawking.

This is my favourite summary of all time. It manages to make me want to read it without giving away a thing about the story itself.

I can't see this ending up as a very large thread, there really aren't many good summaries.

 

This post is so much better than FF's worst summaries. I don't even follow those threads. You did pretty much touch on every good summary I can remember though Andro.

Especially Control. That summary is beautifully done.

I don't have anything of my own to add though I'm afraid.

 

I almost completely agree with this, particularly Control. On the other hand, Santi's summary never really caught me personally, but it doesn't really matter to me because I know the story's great.

I can never agree more with this next part.

But dude, it's Shakespeare. :awesome

And here's one of my favourites of all time.

In general, the shades of grey thing has gotten more than a bit tired now, but it still works great here. The summary reveals everything and nothing simultaneously. Awesome fic.

 

Not even Shakespeare can write at his highest level 100% of the time. There isn't one writer that brilliant. Nothing betrays a fanfic writer faster than the quotes he picks.

Master Slytherin's summary is a great one.

The Sun Dog's summary is obviously really effective given how many reviewers have flocked to it for its length, but it's too try hard for me. That's another aspect of summaries. They're bound to turn someone off, but the idea is to minimize that number, and this summary does that.

A great story that deserves a touched-up summary is nuhuh's Catharsis:

Post DH. Harry could never have known Albus-Severus was the herald of the new dark age. He watched as his youngest child came to be known as the Dark Son. Now Harry goes back in time to save his family and his son from the dark path.​

Dark appears too many times in too small a space.

Taure's Harry Potter AU story is another one :

Harry Potter and the Lords of Magic I
Massively AU. Assume nothing. Harry Potter is born into a very different world than the one in canon. A world where the Greats of history walk among mere men. A world where power is all that matters, and young Harry Potter is a commodity desired by many.​

A lot of "In a world"-isms "In a world where all is not what it seems." "In a world where appearances can be deceiving." "In a world where..."

A killer summary:

Awaken Sleeper by Water Mage
For years Harrison Potter has been in a mental institution living dreams of magic, wizards, and dark lords. Eventually the dreamer has to awaken. His reality has to be accepted as fantasy. Although some things stay the same... Dresden Files xover.​

How awesome is that? Bitchingly awesome idea, and the second half suggests some tension in the story that you need to see for yourself, and that the premise can't be taken at face value. Really well done.

We might exhaust the supply of good summaries down the road, but there are plenty of them out there. The thread is still intended as an analysis tool to help improve summaries. Maybe this can be a workshop-type thread where people can post their own summaries and get suggestions.

There are a lot more than the 10 or so I've quoted here. Really good summaries are like catching lightning in bottles, aren't they?

I'll mention another one of my own:

The Strangergod
Freed from the desolation of Azkaban, Harry Potter rejoins a society that has changed in his absence. Even as the new masters of the wizarding world seek to use him for unknown purposes, he knows he's left something behind on Azkaban's dark shores.​

It's kind of loosely written and falls apart a little, but the ending is another example of what contributes to good summaries. I lay out the premise - Harry leaving Azkaban, emphasis on society changing while he's stuck there, and then "something left behind on Azkban's dark shores". It suggests something larger to the story, something mysterious that's back at Azkaban and forebodes a return. Vagueness too, so that the reader doesn't know whether it's an object, person, or other entity.

 

One of my favourite summaries is my own. Yes. That's megagay.

Keep your flowery, awesome and enthralling summaries. I've got bluntness.

 

That can work too. It reminds me of this one:

Blessed by Erised Burning
A story about Harry growing up and killing things.

So blunt you have to read it, but no story can use that summary after that. Yours is less bluntness and more not trying, while Erised's one is kind of witty at the same time.

Another goodie:

Escape to Darkness by kmfrank
After Voldemort's resurrection, Harry awakens to a cold stone floor. After years of toiling with a "reformed" dark wizard willing to aid his revenge, Harry escapes from Nurmengard and finds that the Wizarding world has changed...

The middle sentence is great and makes the summary.

 

Just a personal preference I guess, but I really don't like when questions are included in the summary (unless it's a first person summary). It just seems to really cheapen the experience me for some reason.

No hate on Santi though, as it sorta works in this case.

 

Lawl I remember coming up with that. Best summary I've ever made, and will forever be that. Summaries aren't something I do well, but hey, maybe one day.

 

That was you? I thought it was some noob on irc that faded away. Mattsilver ++.