96 thoughts on “Writing Blurbs”

1. I still want to read this one, no matter what the blurb is! Happy Bob is able to team up with you to get it done 🙂

2. I like the first two paragraphs.

   Something about the third doesn’t work quite as well for me… I think it has to do with the tense of the “over the next week” and the listing maybe? So maybe that’s just a “my-reading-comprehension-style” thing.

   Or maybe the reader/marketer in me maybe wants you to think about going for the 3-peat with falling in love being “the last thing” they have time for with all the other stuff going on in paragraph 3…?

   1. Three-peat, for the win!

      1. “Over the next week, etc.” doesn’t work for me. A three-peat of “the last thing they have time for” would be shorter and snappier.

         1. My favorite by far is four. I like a blurb with a few short sentences and no lists or extra detail, just a few interesting possibilities that I’d like to know more about. And I wouldn’t foreshadow too much plot — just give me the setup for Liz at Day One on the road and I’m happy.

3. Since you are asking – I liked the first bit of draft one through “be a good daughter for once?” but agree ” Too bad her car breaks down there and she’s stuck.” is better than the rest of the paragraph. It does the best job of giving me the same feel as the parts of the book I have read, so if I bought it from the blurb, I would feel satisfied that I was getting what I expected.

   The only things that catch my attention are:
   saying the name the town, which I am then keeping in my head through the rest of the blurb (because it must be important that it is Ohio or why are you telling me this?) but also understand there may be a good reason I don’t know for this.

   Stirring: both the town and Vince. I had to read this bit twice in the 4th draft and it still caught my attention reading the earlier ones. Some other word that would accomplish the same thing? Unless it is just me and everyone else gets it right off.

4. The last version skips the reason she is in town, and left me thinking it was a bit odd that if she is so set against going there she would be driving through and breaking down in the first place. Also I just don’t like the bit about making Vince start to stir. . .it feels cheesy. I don’t think it is needed as there are enough other clues that romance will ensue, but then I mostly read other genres so may not be the best judge of what sort of cues are wanted. I do really like everything from “But over the next week” on though, which is smart and sassy and gives me the expectation of a fun read.

5. I’m wondering if you need to repeat their names in the third paragraph.

   But over the next week Liz and Vince will deal with rumor, politics, an endangered dog, adultery, great diner food, murder, and . . . well not love, neither Liz nor Vince has time for love, but something. Good thing it’s temporary.

   To:

   But over the next week Liz and Vince will deal with rumor, politics, an endangered dog, adultery, great diner food, murder, and . . . well not love, neither of them has time for love, but something. Good thing it’s temporary.

   Either way, glad to have a new Jenny Crusie on its way! Will order for my library system as soon as it’s in Ingram’.

6. I can’t figure out why the first one doesn’t appeal to me. It’s not just that it’s too long. It’s something else. If I hadn’t read the drafts it would not catch my attention.

   I like the fourth one best, but I have a problem (no doubt unique to me) which the juxtaposition of “dog” and “adultery.” I see the comma perfectly well, and yet my brain goes “What? Dogs don’t make vows, they can’t commit adultery!” every time I read the sentence.

7. In the first sentence, I kept tripping over “Burney, Ohio”. The rest of the sentence is great. It made me smile and it immediately sounds like a Jenny Crusie. Loved the list and the “Too bad her car breaks down there”.

   In the second paragraph, I tripped over “polices”, but the ‘town start to stir’ and “Even worse, she makes him start to stir” is wonderful. That made me laugh.

   The rest of is fabulous. I especially enjoyed “well not love, neither Liz nor Vince has time for love, but something” and “Would it kill you to go home and see your mother?”

   The whole blurb is unique and full of snark. I love it! It tells me exactly what kind of book it will be and I can’t wait.

8. I like draft 3 best but it’s still too wordy.
   Liz Danger doesn’t want to go home to a town that…
   Vince Cooper doesn’t need a former juvenile delinquent invading the town he polices making his boss…

9. The first paragraph generally does a great job of selling me; the only thing that my reading snags on is “Burney, Ohio.” (It strikes me as oddly specific.)

   In the second paragraph, there’s something about the parallelism of “makes his boss surly” and “the peaceful town he polices start to stir” that doesn’t read smoothly to me.

   I also have to say that if I saw this blurb for a book by an author I hadn’t read before, the play with “stir” might make me put the book back on the shelf–I’m probably anomalous in this, so take it with a grain of salt, but it feels a little cheap to me somehow. (For some reason, it makes me feel like I’d see Vince smirking by page 10.)

   The tagline would win me back, though.

10. Maybe it’s just me, after spending too much time in Query Letter Hell (at absolutewrite.com), but I’ve seen so, so, so many queries (slightly different form of writing, but many similarities) that start with “the last thing he/she wanted …” that I’m immediately turned off by it. Many, many draft queries there start with some variation of phrases that all boil down to negative goals: “all she wanted” (was to maintain the status quo or be normal or some other boringly vague goal) or “The last thing she wanted” or “She never expected ….” In my experience, those phrases usually set a passive tone and presage very passive protaognists in the remainder of the query.

    I think it also falls in the “passive protagonist” trap — establishing a negative goal. It’s a positive way of saying she doesn’t want something. But we need to know what she DOES want.

    It can work — Martha Wells uses it brilliantly a few times in Murderbot, with MB facing two unpalatable choices — the last thing I want is X and the other last thing I want is Y, but I have to do one of them. It feels more active though, because they’re a means to a positive goal (saving its humans or saving ART or whatever).

    I’m just not sure it works in a query or a blurb. The parallel structure is very appealing — she never wanted, he never wanted, and now they’ve both got to deal with what they never wanted — but the negative goal aspect of it is offputting to me.

    I wish there were a way to search Amazon for the first lines of blurbs, to see how often the phrase is used, or if I’m just overly sensitive to it, but I can’t figure out a way to do it.

11. Count me in the group that thinks the problem is with the “over the next week” paragraph. I kind of don’t care about any of that stuff happening until I’ve started to read the book. Rumors, adultery, dogs, blah blah, whatever.

12. The last thing Liz Danger wants is to go home to Burney, Ohio, where she grew up, a town full of gossip and snobbery, not to mention the mother who makes her feel guilty, the ex-boyfriend who dumped her three times, and the police chief who hates her. Too bad her car breaks down there. The last thing police officer Vince Cooper needs is a former juvenile delinquent who makes his boss surly and his peaceful town start to stir. Even worse, she makes him start to stir. But over the next week Liz and Vince will deal with rumor, politics, an endangered dog, adultery, great diner food, murder. . . but not love – neither Liz nor Vince has time for love – but something. Good thing it’s temporary.

    Probably.

    Lavender’s Blue
    Would it kill you to go home and see your mother?

    NoteTabPro says 140 words. I only managed to cut seven. I think the rearrangement helps, but I may be wrong. I often am. It’s that Y chromosome.

    1. Shorter:

       The last thing Liz Danger wants is to go where she grew up, a hometown full of gossip and snobbery, the mother who makes her feel guilty, the ex-boyfriend who dumped her three times, and the police chief who hates her: Burney, Ohio. Too bad her car breaks down there. The last thing officer Vince Cooper needs is a former juvenile delinquent who makes his boss surly, and his peaceful town start to stir. Worse, she makes him start to stir.

       But over the next week Liz and Vince will deal with rumor, politics, an endangered dog, adultery, great diner food, murder. . . but not love – neither Liz nor Vince has time for love – but something. Good thing it’s temporary.

       Probably.

       Lavender’s Blue
       Would it kill you to go home and see your mother?

       NTP says 131 words.

       1. Last try:

          The last thing Liz Danger wanted was to go where she grew up, a hometown full of gossips, snobs, the mother who made her feel guilty, the ex-boyfriend who dumped her three times, and the police chief who hated her: Burney, Ohio. Too bad her car broke down there. The last thing officer Vince Cooper needed was a former juvenile delinquent who disturbed his peaceful town and made his boss surly. Worse, she disturbed him.

          But over the next week Liz and Vince will deal with rumor, politics, an endangered dog, adultery, great diner food, murder… but not love – neither Liz nor Vince has time for love – but something. Good thing it’s temporary.

          Probably.

          Lavender’s Blue
          Would it kill you to go home and see your mother?

          125 words. Tenses adjusted in the first paragraph, all past tense. Second paragraph, present/future tense. As always, kept the rest. Changed “Stir” to “disturb.” It still works, I think. If it needs to be shorter, lose Burney, Ohio.

          1. Any time I see “the last X she wanted,” I mentally add “but it’s on the list.”

          2. Like disturb SO much better than stir

13. I love “Would it kill you to go home and see your mother?” In the context of a murder mystery, that made me laugh. It also set me up to expect that Liz’ll be in danger.

    I had trouble with the first sentence of the first paragraph, partly because of the bit about Burney, Ohio. The sentence was quite complicated to parse and that killed its impact for me.

14. I think I would just rearrange a few things and change a couple of words. I’d put the mom last as it gives her more oomph since we all know that she’s the one Liz is really avoiding. I also think I’d leave out the bit about her mom making her feel guilty. Avoiding her mom because of guilt feels kind of childish and weak. It could be that Liz’s mom is Guilts for the USA at the Mom Olympics but we don’t know that from the blurb and it says something funny about Liz to me.

    You’ve also got 2 things (gossip and snobbery) and 3 people (boyfriend, chief, mom). Would it read smoother to have it be gossips and snobs and boyfriend, chief, mom so that they are all people?

    Also, even though everyone calls where they grew up “home,” it clearly has no homey vibes for Liz so is she maybe going back to the town? It would emphasize that Liz feels like an outsider.

    What’s Vince’s rank? You could say Detective Vince or whatever and you could take out the bit about town he polices and maybe say something like “his peaceful town” to emphasize that Vince belongs in the town and is the opposite of Liz in that way as well.

    I’d cut the bit about the week and start with Liz and Vince and at the second L and V, I’d make it something like “they don’t have time for love” to show that by the end of the book they are, in fact, a they. Even though we know that this is a slow burn romance, it’s still a romance (sorry Bob) and the couple might not be married by the end but they should at least know that they are a couple, even if they don’t want to admit it.

    The order of the things they deal with feels off. I’d put the dog first maybe second with murder first and I think it might flow better to alternate a big deal to everyone else (murder!) with something that shows their personal side of things (diner food!) so you get a sense that the mystery is balanced with their YEC.

    I don’t like “stir.” Jenny Crusie heroine’s don’t stir, they cause seismic events.

    As always, YMMV.

    To pay the puppy tax, Hannah whacked her (very long) tail really hard against the filing cabinet this morning then spun around and barked at the cabinet. The cabinet was unmoved.

    1. Heroines. Ya know, I proof read for a living…

15. I adore the tag line – ‘Would it kill you to go home and see your mother?’ I feel like that nails voice and content in one clever sentence.

    I’m tripping over all the stirring, like a few others here have said. That jars for me.

    I didn’t get a strong sense that we’re in for a murder mystery. I know you mention it in the list, but that felt a bit lost to me. I get the potential romance vibes, but not so much the murder expectations.

    1. Agree. I feel like I know it’s a murder mystery because I know…but I’m not sure I would have realized that’s the central plot of the story if I were coming into the blurb cold.

       1. Well, in theory, it’s a subplot supporting the romance.
          It’s a weak theory though.

16. I am not a writer, but my two-penneth:

    I’m also tripping over the specific naming of Burney, Ohio – does the reader need that level of detail at this point?

    I want to put in “guilt-tripping mother” as being a shorter description (apologies if that counts as re-writing).

    I second feeling the potential smirk red flag of the play on ‘stir’ – I’m not sure you need that particular sentence/thought, since your reader will make romantic assumptions from the structure and content of the rest of the blurb anyway?

    I find ‘over the next week’ oddly confining – it throws me out of the story because I get distracted by how short a timeframe it is (which may be the point, but it would not make me more likely to buy it)

    Naming them twice in the third paragraph – I agree with Jamie, but would drop the first and keep the second (thus demonstrating the whole ‘everyone has a differing opinion’ thing, lol)

    I’m good with the listing element, but not sure if you are going for escalation or randomness with your order.

    I love the overall tone and I think you hit your main elements, which I think is why we’re all picking up on tweaks rather than overhauls.

    If you used this as is I’d still get the book on the basis that it’s a Crusie – the only bit that would give me actual pause is Liz ‘stirring’ Vince, but that may be because I’m not primarily a romance reader (I tend more towards murder :-)).

17. Wanted to add: I especially love the tagline!

18. I actually like the first draft best because it sounds like a story.

    Who is the former juvenile delinquent (Liz?)? Does that really belong in the blurb? How old is Liz? In her 20s? How old is Vince? What I’ve learned is that Liz is still seen as an agitator and she hasn’t been missed. She’ll get blamed for anything that happens.

    “Stirs” sounds like a hard-on and doesn’t thrill me; in fact, I think there’s an overload of romance stuff in the blurb — isn’t this a 3-book series with a slow-burn romance? This blurb makes me expect lots of romance and commitment in Lavender’s Blue.

    From the last line I expect Liz to be at least almost murdered if not murdered.

    I agree with others’ comments that the current blurb misses (1) escalation of important stuff (which tells me what kind of book it is); I get the feeling that the blurb is trying to promise me everything. (2) I can see that Liz is stuck in Burney (I like having the town named), but I don’t anticipate that Liz and Vince will be forced to work together to solve any problems.

    So, while I have a sense of situation, I don’t have any idea of the overall conflict. The commenter who said that negatives were being presented was correct. Is Liz successful as a ghostwriter? Is Vince at the top of his game as a small town policeman? Perhaps none of this information is important — I’m just thinking of the criteria you gave us for a blurb.

    And, both despite of and because of my lengthy comments, I’m looking forward to Lavender’s Blue. One last question — why isn’t there anything about the title in the blurb?

19. Okay, the “Burney, Ohio” goes, “stirring” goes, “over the next week” goes.

    The tagline stays.

    Negative goal for Liz: Yep. Bob pointed it out, and I went back and analyzed the whole thing, trying to figure out how to fix it because obviously he (and all of you) got it right: she has a negative goal which is why she says no to everything which kills the story. Well, it doesn’t kill the story, Vince is going after bad guys like a tiger, but Liz just wants to not be in Burney.

    The obvious fix for a negative goal is to flip it: it’s not that Liz doesn’t want to be in Burney, it’s that she wants to be in Chicago.

    But the problem I constructed for myself is that Liz’s arc is from no, trying to escape her past to yes, embracing the present and future. This was a dumb arc, no doubt about it, but Liz’s part of the book is written for it. In the first act she’s trying to get out of town the next day, in the second act she’s gotten sucked up into a wedding for three days, but is getting out of town on Monday, in the third act, there’s been a murder and she can’t leave because she’s a witness, and in the fourth act, she’s in jail. All the turning points are based on her negative goal being thwarted.

    So I’m going to have to think around that. She is arced so that she says Yes to some people in Act Two: a little girl, her mother, Vince. In Act Three, the sky falls in on her so she’s just trying to survive (and that’s not good for a PoV character, either) but it does make her accept help, connect to people. And then in Act Four she stands up, mad as hell, and goes out to fix things, accepting that she has to deal with Burney, even though she’s going to leave again.

    So I just have to rethink those arcs. She is positive about Vince, this isn’t a will they or won’t they romance, there is no big misunderstanding, they both handle things like sane adults with benefits, so there’s that. I think her positive goals for the romance–she’s positive she wants him each night–help balance the get-out-of-town goal.

    But as Bob said, she’s mostly reactive for most of the book. Which, as he also pointed out, is the point of her plot.

    TL,DR: I’m screwed until I figure this out.

    But I am very proud of so many of you for catching that. You guys are so smart. :p

    1. If this is a story about confronting your past, is Liz’s goal to pass through her home town with as little trauma as possible?

       The easiest way to do that is to just drive through, no stopping, but after that becomes impossible the next easiest thing would be to just see her family and/or the one person with no trauma attached to them and then leave the next day. And then something else happens, etc.

       It sort of makes sense if her goal is to get through there safely, because the whole town’s a battlefield, but that may still count as a negative goal because she’s not looking for change, she’s just trying to protect herself. Not sure about that, I’m not really a writer. But maybe?

       1. That’s a really interesting way to look at it.
          The problem is defining safety.
          That is, the goal has to be something concrete. Getting to Chicago is concrete. Finding safety has to be embodied in something concrete. And it is, she finds it in Vince, he’s the only thing in town she’s not back away from. For one thing, he’s only been there six months, so he doesn’t have strong ties to the place.
          But that takes us back to the romance, which is a slow burn in this, and which isn’t really her goal. She and Vince both think of it as temporary, so it’s not that great a romance plot.
          Back to the mystery. ARGH.

          1. Can it be as simple as making it through visiting town for her mother’s birthday without getting arrested for something else she didn’t do? That’s both a physical and emotional threat, and it’s also plausible because it’s happened to her before.

             That adds some crunch to the fact that the love interest is a cop, and plays well with the mystery being the main plot (which honestly it sounds like it is here because the romance is a slow burn over three books). And then when she does get arrested it would punch up the all is lost turning point.

             Not sure if this is in any way helpful, but it sounds like tying both kinds of justice together is important for the story.

             1. With all that said, what does the first scene say her goal is?

             2. She says it to Vince when he picks her up for speeding:

                “I was stopping by home because it was on my way to Chicago, and then I decided I didn’t want to, and that’s why I gunned the car, and once I’m done here, I’m going to keep on trucking, so I won’t be telling my mother anything for awhile, and I definitely won’t be speeding in Burney again.”

                Her goal is to get away from and stay away from Burney. Yes, I really screwed myself into a corner on this one.

             3. It’s always helpful to talk it out.

                Making it through her mother’s birthday without getting arrested is a negative goal: “I don’t want to go to jail.” If she’s scaling a wall to get out, that’s a positive: “I want to be on the other side of this wall and I’m doing this active thing to get there.” But if her goal is to not get arrested, then she can’t act, she has to stay still so she isn’t seen and can’t accidentally commit a crime.

             4. She then acts to contradict that though, right? So what do her actions say her goal is? (Unless she doesn’t, in which case please ignore.)

                And if this is a story about justice/safety, how would Liz in scene one define justice/safety in Burney? Would that change by the end? And would that question help clarify what she actually wants?

             5. No, she’s pretty much trying to get out all the way through.
                Her car breaks down and she deals with the garage, telling them she needs the car to get to Chicago for a big pay bump.
                She says no to several people who want her to stay longer.
                She stays because she’s injured and she’s told not to drive for twenty-four hours.
                Then her client blackmails her into staying until Monday, but she’s definitely leaving on Monday.
                Then on Monday she gets arrested.

                She’s trying to leave all the way through to the end.

                Justice and safety are not the same thing. She doesn’t want justice, there’s no injustice for her, she just wants to leave. She does want safety, but the way she defines that is in leaving.
                She codifies safety as her car, the place where she works and sometimes sleeps. The problem with Burney is that people find her and get in the car and talk to her. It happens three times in the first two days.

             6. So if her goal is to pass through town safely, and safety is represented by her car, and the car breaks down in the first scene, then getting it fixed to get going is a positive goal. Not the larger overall goal, but something she’s actively pursuing at least. How important is the car in the story, and could it be part of her larger goal of protecting herself from the town?

             7. The car’s a motif that pretty much represents her life as it is, always moving, never putting down roots, always about work. She gets it back at the end of Act One.

    2. To me, the positive flip isn’t that she wants to be in Chicago, it’s that she wants out. It’s a subtle change, but it’s also active. It means that she’ll identify the barriers to leaving and take them down. And it’s in identifying (and mitigating) the barriers that she’ll realize that it isn’t the place, it’s the things she had to mitigate to feel secure.

       1. But again, “wanting out” isn’t concrete.
          That is, it’s not “wanting to go to Chicago” or “wanting to go to Paris” it’s “wanting to be anywhere but here” which is a negative goal.
          The big drawback to a negative goal is that it means that the protagonist says, “No.” Which means she’s doesn’t move and change.
          Or look at this way:
          It’s like improv. The rule in improv is to never say no because it’s a roadblock to the story you’re creating on the fly. If you say, “No,” the other person in the improv has nowhere to go. If you say, “Yes, but . . .” they have a thread to pick up on.

          If she starts out saying, “I need THIS,” and the reader buys into it, then that need pulls the reader along. But I have a feeling that the reader isn’t buying into her wanting to get out of Burney. That’s where all the interesting people are, doing interesting if demented things. I keep going back to the Disney trope of the “I want” song in the first act. “I want to be where the people are . . . ” Except Liz is “I want to be where the people aren’t.”

          1. Sorry if this has already been addressed, but what is in Chicago that she needs to get to? What does she do for a living? Because it seems to me that no matter where she is, she is going to try to honor her commitments.

             “I can’t stay in Ohio, I need to be in Chicago to paint a mural (insert specific task here)”

             And until she gets that mural or speech or whatever done, or finds a way to move the task to Ohio, it’s going to be preoccupying.

             1. She’s a ghostwriter and her latest client is in Chicago.

                But the story isn’t about the book she’s ghostwriting, so while she gets harassing phone calls from her client and she keeps working on the book throughout because if she finished is by June 1 she gets a $20,000 bonus, none of that can go in the blurb because it’s a subplot. She has a positive goal for that subplot, it’s just not compelling for the reader. I think. I think the reader wants to know if she’s going to get together with Vince and what the hell happened to the guy who died that Vince can’t stop looking into.

                Here have some Anemone:

                “so it was now charmingly retro. At least that’s what Anemone would call it. Anemone’s my current client, and when you’re ghost-writing somebody’s memoirs for them, you have to think like them, so a lot of Anemone creeps into my speech. Thank God it’ll be gone in June.”

                I saw Anemone’s ID on the screen, thought, Of course, and answered. “Hey, you. Where’ve you been?”
                “Where have I been?” she said, her faint drawl getting stronger because she was annoyed. “Honey, where are you?”
                “The car broke down.”
                “No. Oh, honey.” I could see her big blue eyes widening in platinum-blonde sympathy; Anemone never missed a moment of drama. “Were you stranded on a deserted road?”
                “Yes. I was stranded on a deserted highway outside Burney. There was thunder in the distance, and I heard ominous music in the background.”
                Anemone sighed. “And then your high school sweetheart drove by and saved you.”
                “No, he’s getting married, so he was busy. But a cop tried to give me a speeding ticket.”
                “Was he cute?”
                I thought about Vince in those overalls and wondered if he had a tool belt. ”I wouldn’t say cute. But he definitely had his good points. Sharp eyes. Nice chest. Great ass.”
                “I knew it. Love is everywhere if you’re just open to it, honey.”
                “I don’t think it’s love. He let me fall in a ditch.”
                “Oh. So when will you be here?” The question was supposed to be polite, but there was edge in it now, all the fluff and dreaminess gone from her voice. Probably my punishment for refusing to fall in love with the law. . . .

                “Don’t be bitchy, honey. I loved every one of my husbands. And some of them were real bastards, too. Are you going to sleep with the cop?”
                “No.”
                “Well, if you’re going to be there for the night, you shouldn’t waste it.”
                “I don’t think I spent half an hour with him, Anemone. For all I know, he’s married with six kids.”
                Anemone’s “tsk” came over the phone loud and clear. “For all you know he’s single with a huge personality. There’s no point in passing up a good time, Liz. There’s a pageant official here who has potential. He’s fifty-five which is a little bit old, but I like to think I’m open-minded.”
                “Fifty-five’s pretty good. You’re sixty-five.”
                “What’s that got to do with anything?”
                “Absolutely nothing. If you think of anything you want me to put in the book, call me and I’ll take notes. I’ll be working here.”
                “You’re in the back of your car again, aren’t you?”
                “It’s nice here.”
                “Oh, Liz, Liz, Liz.”
                “Good-bye, Anemone,” I said, and hung up.

20. The stakes don’t seem high for Vince in this thought: “…who makes his boss surly” and then they feel vague in “the peaceful town he polices start to stir.”

    Can you punch those up? The rest works for me.

    1. Yep. The stakes are low in the beginning; he’s investigating a cold case, but I can put that in.

21. I don’t think it is negative if your goal is to simply survive. Putting it in positive terms her goal could be: I am going to go do this thing I have to do and survive this time when I have to be in my home town.
    I think a lot of us have had this goal at one time or another. I know I have.

    1. Yes. And if it’s about keeping yourself safe, it sort of blends the two genres of the plot and subplot as well. That whole “romance fiction promises emotional justice, crime fiction promises moral justice” thing. Because both kinds of safety are being threatened here.

       1. That’s good, it is about justice.
          But I still need to get the core concept down.
          This is a story about Liz who wants X because Y. With X and Y being concrete things.

    2. Again, how does this story define survive?
       Does it mean literary to not die? Then the smartest thing to do is get out of town.
       Does it mean to psychologically survive the trauma the town evokes in her? Then how do we make that concrete? (Open question, I have no idea.)

22. The only thing I related to was the tag line. Also in my current political environment, I see Ohio and I think – I am not going there.

    1. Yeah, I don’t miss it much.

23. Okay, how about this:

    The last thing Liz Danger wants to do is go back to her hometown, a place where her mother makes her feel guilty, her ex-boyfriend dumped her three times, and the police chief hates her. Then her car breaks down there and she’s stuck for the weekend.

    The last thing Vince Cooper needs in the town he just moved to is a former juvenile delinquent whose mere presence dismays his boss, disrupts the big society wedding of the delinquent’s ex, and distracts him from the cold case he’s growing obsessed with. Then he gets a closer look at her and he’s stuck for the weekend.

    The last thing the town needs is furor over shady politics, rumored adultery, financial skulduggery, and Liz and Vince’s . . . whatever that is, not a love affair, certainly, but there’s something going on there, and the town gossips would commit murder to learn their secrets.

    Unfortunately somebody else is willing to commit murder to keep theirs. And they’ve set their sights on Liz Danger.

    Lavender’s Blue
    Would it kill you to go home and see your mother?

    183 words

    1. Oh, I like that better. It hasore snarky energy.

       One aside, does it matter that the title isn’t explained? I know who Lavender is and why she is blue, but if I were coming to the blurb cold, I might expect an explanation.

       1. I had “the wedding of Lavender Blue and the delinquent’s ex” but that was clunky. I’ll try again.

    2. I like this.

    3. I think this one definitely tells the reader what kind of book they’re going to get. 🙂

24. I like the last one. I am getting stuck on the “there’s” though. Particularly the “then her car breaks down there” it makes more sense to me if it’s something like “then her car breaks down and she’s stuck there for the weekend”.

25. I like this latest blurb. It tells me a story that I want to find out more about.

    One thing — in this version, Vince sounds to me like he is the police chief.

26. Yes on Philby’s “then her car breaks down and she’s stuck there for the weekend.” Or, something like “then her [carburetor] dies and she’s stuck there for the weekend.”

    Maybe “disrupts her ex’s big society wedding and distracts Vince from his [new] cold case obsession.”

    “hometown, where” “in his new hometown.”

    Maybe cut “commit”?

    —–
    169 words:

    The last thing Liz Danger wants to do is go back to her hometown, where her mother makes her feel guilty, her ex-boyfriend dumped her three times, and the police chief hates her. Then her [carburetor] dies and she’s stuck for the weekend.
    The last thing Vince Cooper needs in [his new hometown] is a former juvenile delinquent whose presence dismays his boss, disrupts her ex’s big society wedding, and distracts him from his new cold case obsession. Then he gets a closer look at Liz and he’s stuck for the weekend.
    The last thing the town needs is furor over shady politics, rumored adultery, financial skulduggery, and Liz and Vince’s . . . whatever that is, not a love affair, certainly, but there’s something going on there, and the town gossips would murder to learn their secrets.
    Unfortunately somebody else is willing to murder to keep theirs. And they’ve set their sights on Liz Danger.
    Lavender’s Blue
    Would it kill you to go home and see your mother?

    1. “Her ex’s big society wedding” works better than the other version. Way less awkward.

27. Thanks!

    And I did know she was a ghost writer. Sorry. Morning brain.

28. This has only just appeared on Newsify, and I’m going to give you my quick-read feedback before reading anything beyond your current blurb: Cut ‘the place where she grew up’ (‘go home’ and the other details cover that). I don’t like ‘start to stir’, esp re Vince. Love the third para, especially.

    Hope that’s helpful, though judging by the number of comments I had to scroll through, you’ve had more than enough edits by now.

    1. Loved the tagline, too. And after a slower skim I can see you’ve rewritten it already.

29. So, visiting the home town was not in fact the last thing Liz wanted to do. It is something that she had made up her mind to do, even if she changed it afterward. Perhaps what she really wants is to prove that she has moved beyond the problems of her past. Maybe that could be expressed with something along the lines of:

    Liz thinks she can handle a visit to her home town, until she gets there. She is not ready to face her guilt tripping mother, the ex boyfriend who dumped her three times, or the cop who hates her. Then her carburetur dies. . .

    1. That’s still an abstract. And it’s too much telling of an abstract emotion for a blurb which has to be snappy and direct.
       Don’t explain Liz’s emotions, show her having them and let the reader intuit them.

       BUT this is a blurb so it has to be snappy. Here are the problems, here are the problems, here are bigger problems, title, tagline.

30. Did this last night, but it may help – esp. with the first graph:

    The last thing Liz Danger wants is to return to her hometown, with its gossips and snobs, the ex who dumped her three times, and the police chief who hates her. But her mother guilts her into a visit—and when her car breaks down, she’s stuck.

    The last thing Officer Vince Cooper needs is a former juvenile delinquent who shakes up his peaceful town, riles up his surly boss…and worst of all, stirs up his feelings.

    But when a bride-to-be meets an untimely end, Liz and Vince must deal with small-town politics, long-ago betrayals, a cheating spouse and an endangered dog—while bonding over great diner food and the beginnings of…something.

    Lavender’s Blue
    Would it kill you to go home and see your mother?

    I’d also tried opening with a more active goal, but then I had to go write about HVAC systems:

    Just a quick visit home to appease her mother, and Liz Danger can head off to her glamorous new ghostwriting assignment. But her car breaks down and she’s stuck in Burney, Ohio, with its gossips and snobs, the ex who dumped her three times, and the police chief who hates her.

    1. Probably better than mine, but it needs the parallels, I think. Her mother, Cash, and George are all people problems, and her mother didn’t guilt her into coming, Liz is surprising her. I think.

    2. I always enjoy your posts, and I know that you’re a technical writer, but the HVAC bit reminded me that maybe you can help me with a WAY WAY-OFF question I have?

       I live on the second floor of an 1870’s home that is not a candidate for central air-conditioning–not that I like that anyway. What I’d like is to find an expert who can evaluate my place for the most climate-friendly way to cool it, using good-old-fashioned everyday physics of prevailing airflow, window units (except they’re ugly and cumbersome but..), and ductless options.

       Does such an expert exist? What would I google on?

       Thanks!

       1. Oh, wow, wish I had a good answer. I write marketing copy for a client that makes systems for office buildings and schools and hospitals…but no residential buildings.

          Maybe try “eco-friendly heating and cooling near me,” “eco-friendly residential HVAC,” “sustainable residential HVAC,” or “net zero residential cooling.”

          Good luck!

          1. Great ideas, thanks! I’ve started googling and there’s tons of wonderful rabbit holes to explore (net zero especially, but also geo-thermal, air/water/light options)–near me!

31. If you’ve got the three “last times” covered in the latest blurb…might you consider ending with a new “first time” to help Liz have a positive goal?

    “But for now the first time, Liz has someone from Burney on her side…so she can clear her name, stop the gossips, make peace with her mom, finish her book and find…if not love, exactly…”

    Or however you would put that in your voice/tone and which would include the right plot elements that you’re thinking of.

    1. I thought of that, but I could’t make it work. (Vince isn’t from Burney but that’s a detail.)
       But then I’m having trouble figuring out Liz’s arc in the actual book, so that’s no surprise.

32. I didn’t think to ask the first time through, but just for clarification — is this a romance with a mystery subplot or vice versa? Because I think the new blurb works for the former, but not so much if it’s primarily a mystery, and I can’t remember what it’s supposed to be.

    1. FWIW, my first publisher, Gemma Hallliday, does really great mystery-with-romance blurbs (I think), so if Lavender is mystery first, romance second, it might be worth a look at how hers are laid out. Here’s her first book (but she also writes most of the cover copy for all of the books she publishes): https://www.gemmahalliday.com/spying-in-high-heels And of course, if Lavender is romance-first, just ignore this suggestion.

    2. I actually think it’s women’s fiction with a romance and mystery subplot. Don’t tell Bob.
       That is, it’s about Liz’s journey from living in the past to embracing the future. She wants independence but she needs connection and she finds that in Vince.
       So part of the journey is the romance with Vince.
       And part of that is the parallel mystery subplot that has Vince as the protagonist and creates the same arc for him.

       And yes, I could have made this much simpler by picking romance or mystery, but I like this. We’ll get it to betas in a couple of weeks and find out if it works.

       1. Can she end up with a series goal without it being her original intention in the first story?

          All of this sounds like Liz was bumping along semi-unaware of just how much she was missing connection/community after a lifetime of being made to feel like a loner … and that maybe it took a car bottoming out and having to solve a murder and make a …”if not love, something” connection to realize some of what she was missing….and that she was gonna have to find her people to ultimately get her goal.

          But if she originally thinks her goal is just to get to Columbus to get the bonus because the money is stability…but then she learns – it’s not money alone that brings stability, it’s also having People…isn’t that potentially part of an arcing progress to a positive goal over the three books?

          1. You have to have a single goal to keep the story line coherent. Having said that, there are ways to hack that.

             I did a book in which the heroine didn’t like her husband much and then found out he was cheating on her. But he was a great father to their little girl, and she didn’t want to disrupt the kid’s life, so she decided to stay.
             Then at the turning point, she found out the husband was planning to flee to South America and take the daughter, and she was ready to divorce and make sure he couldn’t get his hands on the kid.
             Then at the midpoint, he turned up dead, and her goal was to not be arrested because she didn’t want her mother raising her daughter.
             Then at the crisis point, the daughter goes missing, and her goal is to find her.
             BUT that’s all actually one goal, keep her daughter safe and happy. The details morph with the plot, but the goal never changes.

             That’s kind of what you’re suggesting with the money through line. But Liz doesn’t care about getting money, she cares about security. If she finishes Anemone’s book, she’ll get money which is a kind of security, she’ll have kept her reputation as a book doctor that meets deadlines no matter what which is also a kind of security, and she’ll be out from under the worry about the book which is another kind of security. So her goal is to make herself more and more secure (there’s a never-ending goal) and everything about Burney makes her less secure. Except for Vince.

             So there might be a through line there, except security in general is an abstract. I can see her car as a symbol of that, but as an actual goal, it won’t work. Money will confuse the issue as a goal although she does explain that its security to Will, so that’s on the page. Let me cogitate.

33. What an agile community Arghers are. You dream up a gazillion ways to kill a character while turning her blue AND also work on positive spins to fix less-positive approaches.

    Call me twisted but I’m ok with negative goals. Avoid COVID. Escape bad situations. Enter into a marriage of convenience that is not actually so convenient after all. I think it’s an opportunity for irony for sure and in the right snarky hands a lot of fun humor.

    But to focus on the original request (basing comments on Draft 4.1): I still trip up on why Liz’s car is in her hometown when she hates it so (the answer was made beautifully clear in Draft 1: passing through FAST). I even didn’t connect “former juvenile delinquent” to Liz at first (maybe insert “the return of a” in Vince’s thought bubble?).

    That’s it. Carry on with snark and snappy please. 🙂

    1. Avoid COVID is actually Stay Healthy, a positive goal, that the character has to actively pursue: masks, vaccination, distancing, etc.
       Escape bad situations is a positive goal: get to safety, and the reader wants the character to get to safety.
       Enter into a marriage of convenience is a positive goal: get married. AVOID a marriage of convenience is closer to a negative goal.

       A negative goal is something results in the character saying no and not changing.

       1. Huh. So NO, no way and no how–not changing = negative goal. You really are SO good at making concepts clear and strongly distinguishable. Thanks!

          1. The problem is, if they’re saying no, they’re not moving or changing so not very interesting.

             And thank you!

34. I stumbled across some info that I thought you and Bob definitely need to know: it turns out that multiple rivers have caught fire … https://www.environmentalcouncil.org/when_our_rivers_caught_fire

    1. We are not setting a river on fire. EVER.

       1. You say that now…

35. I went for a 3-mile walk in the rain, and to keep my mind off my wet socks I came up with a different direction – not right, but might spark ideas:

    Liz Danger has a simple plan: surprise her mother with a birthday visit and a 5-foot teddy bear, then get the hell out of town.

    Officer Vince Cooper has simple needs: settle into his Airstream and his new job, and keep the hellraisers out of town.

    But when Liz’s arrival stirs up a killer, things get complicated.

    Now Liz and Vince must take on shady politics, vicious gossip and financial skullduggery—while solving a murder, saving a dog and figuring out what the hell is going on between them.

    Lavender’s Blue.

    Would it kill you to go home and see your mother?

    102 words

    1. That’s better than mine.
       It’s missing the romance vibe, but it’s pretty good, MJ.

       1. Thank you! It’s always fun to play along.

36. Bob’s blurb: Stuff happens.
    Then more stuff happens.
    Some YEC.
    A shot or two.
    Someone dies.
    Stuff happens.
    Someone is happy.
    Someone is sad.
    The end.

    1. I’ll buy it!

    2. And it’s still better than mine.

37. I really like the Anemone – Liz dialogue.

38. Ok, I was thinking about the blurb while I was getting a massage, which is honestly kind of ridiculous given how not-attached I am to this story!

    It feels like the tagline doesn’t match the tone of the blurb. And also, does she know she’s living a cliche being stranded in the hometown she wants to escape? Is there a way to play that in the blurb?

    “If this were a made-for-tv movie, she’d be opening a bakery and falling in love. Instead, she’s…”

    1. I think the tone has to be enough to undercut the cliche.
       I wrote the tagline several years ago. I wrote the blurb this week. Who knew it wouldn’t match? ARGH. I’ll look at it again.

39. There’s nothing in the blurb about burning except Burneey, the victim of the burner. And where are the zombies? Did you move them to Haunting Alice? More appropriate there. Is Bob going to write Ethan’s part?

40. I love the tagline!

    1. Me too!

Comments are closed.