Elizabeth Corva's Blog, page 76

The Night My Blurb Burned Down

So there I was last night, listening to Seether and making serious progress on the sequel to A Million Miles Away. I took a break from writing to check for replies to a post I had made earlier to an authors’ forum on the topic of NA (new adult) books that aren’t Romances (which is a blog post in and of itself). I had presented A Million Miles Away as an example of a non-Romance NA and helpfully included the link to the Amazon page so folks could read the summary/blurb and preview (and hey, maybe 1-click that bad boy while they’re at it. Ahem.).

Here’s the original summary in all its well-meaning but misguided glory:

13-year-old Jasmine Ashcroft’s life is shaken by a nightmarish tragedy. During that heart-shattering winter, music is her only comfort. One band in particular helps to soothe her emotional pain: the hard-rocking Strange Angels, led by British singer Jonathan Fox.

Four years later, Jasmine gets the best high school graduation present ever: box seats for a sold-out Strange Angels concert. She expects to see the hottest show of the summer. What she doesn’t expect is for her path to intersect with Jonathan’s in a big way.



Jonathan Fox has known more than his fair share of love and loss on his path to fame. He’s not looking for a serious relationship, especially with an underage fan like Jasmine. But something about the amber-eyed teenager makes him want to give her an all-access pass to his world as a friend…and maybe more. If she can handle his hectic, jet-setting life, that is. Jasmine had better grow up fast, or she’ll become a Rock and Roll exile.

~~~End of old blurb~~

Naive me didn’t even think that anybody would cast a gimlet eye at that and give a sad shake of their head. So I was taken by surprise when one well-established forum member replied that, in essence, if MMA was really supposed to be a different take on a coming-of-age story, it was doing a good job of hiding that fact behind a “sketchy, wish-fulfillment plot disguised as a Romance.”

Oh. Ouch. Wince.*

It stung to read that, but it also made me think. It took an embarrassingly long time to craft that sucker, trying to sum up 76,000 words into 200. I had been so careful to market MMA as not-a-romance, and here was the blurb saying, “Yeah, but not really.” No wonder response has been in the “meh” league from people I’ve approached to do advance reviews or recommend the manuscript to agents. They can’t tell what kind of story it is! Sheez, if I can’t explain it and I wrote the mofo, other people don’t have a chance. I’d pass on it too.

Now that I saw my blurb through more cynical eyes, I realized that the poster was right. Sketchy? Understandable why someone would think that. It’s the ol’ “normal girl meets famous guy” trope. All too easy to hijack into unrealistic territory. Wish fulfillment? Yeah, they got me fair and square on that one, too. I was a hopeless serial-crush-sufferer in my teens and even beyond. My main character Jasmine embodies the things I wanted to happen to me when I was 17. Although MMA is not a romance in the strictest sense of the word (where the couple has a physical relationship and a happily-ever-after ending), it has romantic elements (unrequited love, outright drooling, and will-they-or-won’t-they flirting). It sets up the rest of the series as a romance, and honestly, what romance doesn’t have a bit of wish-fulfillment going on for it?

Still, I knew I could do better. Even though it was getting late and I was already kind of crispy around the edges from my typing marathon, I opened the MMA manuscript, typed the words “Blurb Take #5,044″, and jumped in, keeping that forum poster’s words AND my overall series arc in mind. Guess I was extra motivated because five minutes later, I had this:

Molded by tragedy and forced into emotional independence from a young age, Jasmine Ashcroft thinks she has this whole adulthood thing all figured out. College? Bring it on. Career planning? No problem. Dating? Sure! Well…maybe. After she gets the rest of that stuff dialed in.

But an unexpected meeting with the musician who created the soundtrack to her life puts those beliefs to the test. Can Jasmine find a safe–and sane–place in his high-stakes, jet-setting world without losing herself, or will she become a Rock-and-Roll exile?

~~~End of new and improved blurb~~~

Next, I PM’d the new blurb to the poster who had raised concerns about, thanking him for his brutal honesty and asking for feedback. He replied straight away, saying that it was “perfect for your target audience” and that it captured my character’s voice, a crucial factor for NA and YA book summaries. Whew! Order restored to my poor addled brain. I updated the blurb where ever I could – the book file itself being the lone and frustrating exception – and then went back to writing the sequel. I learned a big honkin’ lesson from this - when it comes to book summaries, short, punchy, and in character is the way to go. And you know you’re on the right track when the words just flow.

And that’s the Saga of the Blurb That (almost) Failed. Thoughts? Mockery? Leave a comment! And thanks for reading.

*And that’s two for flinching, Corva!