The story description needs to give a certain kind of information to the potential readers. It should never be just a short recap of what happens in the story. That’s dry, and most readers don’t like spoilers. This means that if you give too much information about your story, some readers will not read it because you have taken away some of the excitement they feel when they read a new story. But, dramatic story descriptions, in which you’ve given just enough information about your story to make it intriguing, but you’ve kept the crucial things, will make any reader excited to read your story. Read on to learn how to write such a story description.
1. Describe the world
Even if it’s just one sentence in which you tell the reader that your story takes place in a futuristic world, for example, or present day Paris. The good thing about describing the world comes from the fact that this way, you would be giving information without actually spelling it out, by the virtue of association. For example, everybody connects Paris with romance, Las Vegas with partying, and the word “futuristic” almost always means “dystopia.” This actually gives you the opportunity to surprise your readers, because they might be expecting something different than what you actually give them.
2. The backgrounds of the main characters
After you’ve described the world, characters come in second. You need to tell your readers who the protagonist and any other key characters are, and what they usually do in the world you’ve described previously. To make it a little more intense, you can add information about your characters’ personal problems, hopes, dreams or whatever it is that makes them special. Maybe they did something in the past that they’re still thinking about, or maybe they made a mistake and they want to make things right. As long as it is information about your characters’ lives before your story began, it’s okay to be included in this section. It will give you a very good basis for the development of your characters.
3. Describe the change
After you’ve given information about the world and the characters and their lives, now you need to actually tell the reader how those lives change. This doesn’t mean that you have to describe it in detail, in fact, the less you reveal about what actually happens that causes the change in the characters’ routine, the better. You have to be careful when you’re writing this part, because you might actually reveal too much of your story to the reader. This is why you should avoid telling the reader point blank what happens. Instead, some hints should be enough. For example, if the protagonist moves to a new town, or is chosen to do something specific, try to only allude that this is the change that will be the basis for the story.
4. Raise the stakes
Even if it’s romance, raise the stakes by describing what will happen if the hero doesn’t complete his or her mission. Again, avoid giving away too much, but just enough to increase the mystery and the importance of the story and the impact of it on the characters’ lives. Try reading what you’ve written from your readers’ point of view and decide whether you can deduce too much. If you can, try again, until you’re certain that you haven’t revealed too much, or too little, but just enough to make the readers want to immerse themselves in the story.
5. Avoid first person point of view
Even if your story is written in first person point of view, an omnipresent point of view, or simply third person point of view will always work better for a story description. This is due to the fact that if you write your story description in first person point of view, you’re implying that the protagonist survives (this is important if at some point, his or her life is in danger in the book – so this way you’d spoil the outcome of that danger), and that the protagonist has already lived through everything and is now telling the tale. Even if your book is written in the past tense, the readers feel like everything happens in the present, so a first person point of view in a story description implies that it all happens in, what is for the protagonist, the past.
Image credit: CileSuns92 on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0
Georgina Roy wants to live in a world filled with magic. As an art student, she’s moonlighting as a writer and is content to fill notebooks and sketchbooks with magical creatures and amazing new worlds. When she is not at school, or scribbling away in a notebook, you can usually find her curled up, reading a good urban fantasy novel, or writing on her laptop, trying to create her own.