Writing Wednesday: The Art of Blurbs, Part 2

A few weeks ago, I posted about writing blurbs and the difficulty in crafting them down into a catchy sentence or two. I complained in this week's Book Review about the overly long back-of-book blurb from the debut novel I reviewed. I thought maybe another quick post about whittling and crafting might be in order.

So, the background to my blurb writing frenzy it my participation in an upcoming anthology, available for pre-order in March and being released in June, entitled Hunks to the Rescue. My story is title "Breaking the Rules" and is about 35,000 words long. A novella, not a whole long book. Should be easy to write something quick and catchy for a quick read, right?

I tend to like the he said/she said type of story and type of blurb. Two paragraphs, one from each POV. My first pass at a blurb (and believe me, when I say "first" I don't mean I sat down and wrote this all at once. I mean, worked at, thought I'd whittled down and honed...) looked like this:

Boston police detective Jake Campbell isn’t great at following rules. Then again, what’s the rule for finding your girlfriend in bed with her yoga instructor? After the heated breakup leads to a botched arrest and an Internal Affairs investigation, the undercover assignment on Cape Cod sounds like a perfect opportunity to hit the restart button. Catching a few drug dealers sounds like a vacation after the pressures of the city… until he meets a suspect who makes him want to break all the rules.

The only female chef at a five-star resort, Abigail Duncan knows a thing or two about pressure and rules. When she’s forced to hire an inexperienced prep cook, she has no intention of trusting the blue-eyed hunk with anything more than peeling potatoes, let alone her heart. Then people start dying, and Abbie realizes Jake might be the only one who can keep her safe. Whether her heart is safe is another matter.

Shorter than many of the blurbs you read on Amazon, definitely shorter than the book I featured Monday, but when I read the guidelines, it said 300 Characters. That's 2 tweets. Think how hard it is to write a concise tweet to promote a book.

No room for wasted words.

I had to think about it more like a tweet. Who are the characters? What are they doing? Why do I care? Why should anyone care enough to want to read the book? All valid questions.

When I help other writers with edits, I ask them to make sure the reader cares about the characters. If I don't care about the hero and heroine, why spend my time with them?

My editor thought the "where" was important too, that Cape Cod is a selling feature to a story.

So I tried a few more:


Undercover at a 5-star Cape Cod resort, Detective Jake Campbell can’t resist falling for a suspect. But is she willing to break her own rules to be with him?

 

*******

Undercover at a 5-star Cape Cod resort, Detective Jake Campbell can’t resist kissing one of the suspects. But will she ever trust him with her heart?

 

*******

The only female chef at a 5-star resort, Abigail Duncan knows a thing or two about pressure and rules. She has no idea her new cook is an undercover cop, but when people start dying, Abbie realizes Jake Campbell might be the only one who can keep her safe. Whether her heart is safe is another matter.

*******

Jake Campbell isn’t great at rules. Then again, what’s the rule for finding your fiancé in bed with her yoga instructor? Undercover at a posh Cape Cod resort sounds like a perfect chance to hit the restart button…until he meets fiery suspect Abbie Campbell, who makes him want to break all the rules.

 

*******

While undercover at a 5-star Cape Cod resort, Detective Jake Campbell can’t resist the fiery red-headed suspect. With a body count rising around her, can Abbie Campbell trust him with her heart?

*******

I liked the question aspect, and argued that it added a certain amount of anticipation to the teasers and promos. I also argued that since the anthology is "Hunks" the blurb should probably be about him. Abbie's no damsel in distress (although as I work thru edits, she does end up in tears several times, but people she cares about are dying...)

What I finally submitted was this:

*******

Jake Campbell hates rules. When he accepts undercover work at a posh Cape Cod resort, he can’t resist red-headed chef Abbie Duncan, even if she is a suspect. She makes him want to break all the rules. With a rising body count, he must keep Abbie safe…but can she trust him with her heart?

 

*******

I thought I nailed it. Then, when the anthology's edits came back to me, I was a bit surprised, but she was right.


Jake Campbell hates rules. When he accepts undercover work at a posh Cape Cod resort, he can’t resist red-headed chef Abbie Duncan, even if she is a suspect. She makes him want to break all the rules. With a rising body count, he must keep Abbie safe…but can she trust him with her heart?

Why is she a suspect?
Suspected of what?
Why can't she trust?
What's wrong with her?
Turn up the heat.

These simple questions made me read the blurb in a whole new light, and realize I might be too close to the story. I also realized when I asked for help on my blurb, that person knew the story too.

When you ask for help, it might be better to ask someone who DOESN'T know your story. I hadn't considered that. The blurb is to pull in readers - they won't know your story, your characters, your plot - and you need to convince them they're interested.

So I went back to the drawing board a little. Not from scratch, mind you. But tried to answer the questions and punch it up...

Jake Campbell hates rules. Undercover to stop a drug ring at a posh Cape Cod resort, he can’t resist the fiery Head Chef, Abbie Duncan. She may be on the suspect list, but he can’t keep his hands to himself. With a rising body count, he must keep Abbie safe…but can he trust her with his jaded heart?

1. to stop a drug ring: adding these 5 words gives the reader context and ups the stakes. Now we know why he's on the Cape and what she's suspected of being involved with.

2. he can’t keep his hands to himself: To me, this implies there will be touching. Kissing. S-E-X. I'm hoping that's what it implies to the reader as well.

3. can he trust her with his jaded heart? In the first version, I may have tried to mash the prior blurbs together and turned around the last question, but the focus is clearly on Jake. He's an undercover cop, busting drug dealers fro a living. As a reader, I would expect him to be jaded. To have trust issues. He spends his life lying about who he is, right? Makes more sense this way and keeps the focus on Jake.


I'm still waiting to hear back and see whether this version passes muster. Fingers crossed.