I am taking a break from drawing the map for Resurgence to spend some time writing the blurb. At this point, it doesn't matter which gets done first, they both have to get done. My eyes just can't stand looking at land borders, rivers, and mountains anymore.
You would think writing a blurb is easy for a writer but condensing into one or two paragraphs what took pages of words to write is hard, at least for me. I also need to come up with a catchy sentence while I'm at it and that's not any easier.
Elevator pitch
That's how a book blurb has often been described. In only a few sentences, I need to pitch my book to a prospective reader.
Easy? Yeah, right.
I'm good at learning by example. In this case, that doesn't help me much. My story is unique (so says my ego at least), so there should be no example out there for me to follow. So all I really have left are methods I found online to come up with something.
The dreaded "tagline"
To get at the blurb, one recommended approach is to begin with a tagline and then expand on that.
A tagline is essentially a sentence that needs to be: very short, catchy, attention grabbing, and relevant.
It sounds like I need to put on a marketing hat to do this.
To fit that much into one sentence, I better find what's most important in the story. I'll call that step 1 and approach it by writing down the major plot points that take place in Resurgence. Then, to create a tagline for each idea, I'll try to follow this approach: story problem, theme, pitch sentence, tagline.
If that doesn't work, I'll find a different approach.
Comments