It’s a surreal experience to witness a story grow from the seed of an idea into a fully
bloomed novel. And it all starts with landing on an interesting concept—the unique selling
point, the elevator pitch that makes readers go, “Oooh, I want to read that!”
One way to develop your story concept is to write a book blurb—an attention-grabbing
summary that’s between one hundred and three hundred words. This is the text you’d find
on the inside flap or back cover of a book. It’s the teaser that makes readers want
to know more. “Blurbs” can also be quotes from reviewers and other authors endorsing
the book. But for the purpose of this exercise, I’m referring to the promotional text an
author or publisher would use to entice readers.
Usually, you’d write a book blurb after you write the novel. But writing this summary
before you even begin drafting the manuscript can help you refine your story concept and
get feedback on the overall idea. It’s what I like to call a “reverse book blurb.”
It’s a way to see if the concept has legs and can stand on its own in the wild, overpopulated
world of stories. Even if you don’t tend to plot out your novels, writing a blurb ahead
of time can provide a clear focal point—and prevent the story from meandering or spiraling
out of control. It gives you that true north to follow as you write.
Here, I’ll show you how I develop a story concept using multiple drafts of a blurb.
I’ll use the evolution of my concept for Wish Hunter as an example, the first installment
in an urban fantasy trilogy about the dark underworld of stealing wishes in Savannah,
Georgia. I developed the concept alongside authors Jordan Riley Swan and Hero Bowen.
I’ll read you the blurb from the back cover so you can see what the final concept looks
like, although it definitely didn’t start out this way:
Nadia Kaminski’s family has stolen wishes for generations, auctioning them off to skeevy
business tycoons and politicians in back-alley deals. Their operation is simple enough. Find
someone who gained a wish after saving a life. Trick the wisher into sharing a deep secret.
Steal the wish.
And as a marriage counselor, Nadia has more access to people’s secrets than most.
But when Nadia comes across the perfect opportunity to steal a wish for herself, she takes it—and
the rock star she’s stolen it from desperately wants his wish back.
As Nadia tries to figure out how to get rid of the cocky thorn in her side, she must face
off against vengeful wish hunters, her all-too-powerful family, and the consequences of her own desires—because
stealing wishes can be a deadly affair.
My blurb-writing process has three steps: a pitch list, test drive, and redesign. Let’s
see how the sausage gets made.
Start with a simple list of story ideas—your pitch list. Phrase your ideas as if you’re
pitching them to a Hollywood executive. A pitch can span from a single sentence to a
few paragraphs describing the idea. Identify the primary genres, audience, tone, main character,
and core conflict, as well as any comparative books, TV shows, movies, or video games. Explain
your idea in straightforward language.
To get the gears turning, ask yourself interesting questions:
● What two literary tropes could I combine in an unexpected way?
● If a protagonist was the complete opposite of me in terms of personality and goals, what
would their life story look like? ● What is the most awkward, painful, or
shocking scenario I can think of?
At the start, Jordan asked me to pitch five or six ideas. I gave him my list, with most
of the concepts being in the realm of fantasy or science fiction. For example, I pitched
one idea as “If Sherlock Holmes were a criminal in a fantasy world,” and I wrote four paragraphs
summarizing the concept.
The Wish Hunter concept was actually the simplest of the bunch: three wishes, three books, a
contemporary setting. It’d be adult urban fantasy. That’s all I had for the idea.
I just liked the structure of a trilogy, with the mystery of finding out what wish would
be made in each installment pushing readers to the next book. For other clients, I’d
plotted six-, seven-, eight-book series on a book-by-book basis, and I hated how that
tended to drag out the plot just to fill pages. So, I really wanted to do a contained, tightly
plotted series that didn’t ever slow down. As the saying goes, “limitations breed creativity,”
and for me, having that defined box of a trilogy to work in made it easier to plot out.
At the pitch list stage, generate at least five premises until you hit one that really
sings—because our first ideas are seldom the best ones, as you’ll soon see.
Once you have a compelling premise, shape it into a blurb to give to your test audience,
like your family, friends, and critique partners. Try to inject the summary with a touch of
narrative voice that matches the protagonist’s personality or the overall tone of the story.
For a more light-hearted novel, you could add some funny turns of phrase. If it’s
dark and mysterious, your last sentence might really drive home the suspense.
If you need more inspiration, head over to Goodreads and look at blurbs for novels you’ve
read recently. Make sure your blurb answers some of the following questions about the
characters, plot, and originality, expanding upon your original pitch:
● Character: Who is the main character, and what do they want? What do they stand
to lose if they don’t achieve that goal? What is compelling about their personality
and narrative voice? ● Plot: What is interesting about the story
world or setting? What’s the inciting incident? What obstacles stand in the way of the protagonist’s
goals? ● Originality: What new twist or feature
does the story add to this genre? What is the “unique selling point” of this book?
If you’ve ever written a query letter for literary agents, you’ll notice that blurbs
share a lot of similarities with the book summary portion of a query. The key difference
is that blurbs tend to be more general rather than specific, and they’re aimed directly
at the reader, instead of someone in the publishing industry.
With the test blurb, you don’t need to have everything about the story figured out. You
just need to pinpoint one or two specific details about the protagonist and conflict.
Don’t worry if you have no idea how certain events will play out or how you’ll answer
the narrative questions you’ve posed. The point of this exercise is to get a feel for
where the story could go.
For my initial concept, I was really focused on the romance angle, but to be honest, my
first idea sucked. A woman finds a mysterious item that grants wishes and meets a hot, mysterious
paranormal dude she can’t be with, yada, yada, yada. Here’s how I presented it in
blurb format:
If you had three wishes, what would you wish for?
Day in and day out, Nadia Kaminski helps other people untangle their love lives. As a marriage
counselor, she’s seen it all: awkward confessions, mud-slinging divorces, hot-and-heavy affairs.
Despite her wellspring of romantic knowledge, she doesn’t know if love will ever be in
the cards for her again—not after her husband’s death two years ago.
But then she finds the box.
Inside her grandmother’s wooden keepsake box is a letter addressed to “The Wishmaker.”
The instructions engraved on the lid read, “Use your three wishes wisely.” In purple
ink, the phrase “I wish . . . ” swirls across the faded parchment.
Nadia plays along, writing down what her heart most longs for. When she closes the box and
opens it again, the letter is gone.
But wishing for her soulmate doesn’t bring her husband back from the grave. Instead,
she starts seeing numbers floating above everyone’s heads, from her clients to her best friend—and
suddenly, romantic suitors are crossing her path left and right.
Nadia has questions before daring to make more wishes, and there’s only one way to
get answers: seek out the Wishmaker.
After you edit your blurb, try to ask at least three people what they think—a mix of writers
and non-writers. My husband read my blurb and said, “it’s competently written but
sounds cliché.” Ouch. And I got a similarly “meh” response from Jordan and my critique
partners, who said it lacked the spark my stories usually have. No one was really excited
about it, not even me!
I needed to breathe new life into this stale idea. I approached my concept redesign from
three angles: plot, character, and setting.
I asked around my writing group—how can I spice up this premise? A couple of people
latched on to a plot point in my original outline notes that I’d tacked on just to
create conflict—the idea of a villain stealing wishes. That’s when I had my epiphany: stealing
wishes could be the focus of the story. And perhaps the way people gained wishes could
be different, rather than some inherited item—what if they gained wishes from saving someone’s
life? That would add interesting wrinkles. “What if” can be a powerful question to
ask yourself when generating story ideas.
As far as revamping the characters, there was another trope I wanted to avoid: we’ve
all heard the story of a main character who doesn’t believe in magic, but then they
discover that the myths and fairy tales were true all along. While this trope can be super
fun, it was causing creative roadblocks for me; I couldn’t get past my initial idea
unless I dramatically changed it. How about I have a protagonist who’s entrenched in
this world instead? She knows all the rules, the traditions, the dangers. She’s an insider,
not an outsider. This would make the world-building a bit harder in some ways, but it would let
me jump right into the story. Authors like Ilona Andrews and Jim Butcher have set a precedent
for that type of in-the-know protagonist in urban fantasy.
So, I have this main character who’s from a family of wish hunters. The only idea from
the original blurb I liked was having a marriage counselor as a protagonist who’s grieving
over the death of her husband. But let’s make her manipulative, and she uses her job
to steal wishes from her clients. I love a good antihero.
Finally, I hit the restart button on the setting. I knew I wanted to set the story in the US
because, well, “write what you know.” The American South can have that Gothic feel,
and lots of urban fantasy stories are set in well-known cities like New Orleans or Charleston.
Then Savannah, Georgia nestled into my mind. I’ve been there, and it’s beautiful, and
it has a complex history with plenty of local quirks and distinctive landmarks. Dark and
mysterious—that’s what I want.
In redesigning your blurb, look at the feedback you received. List the concept’s strengths
and weaknesses. What aspects intrigued readers the most? What confused them? What parts do
you still feel “meh” about? Like me, you might identify elements that a) feel way too
cliché or b) that you personally find uninteresting. Make a list of three things you absolutely
want the story to have and think about how you could include those or make them a more
significant part of the story. For Wish Hunter, I wanted to have a marriage counselor protagonist,
a vivid backdrop, and a unique mechanism for gaining wishes.
With those ideas in mind, I wrote a new blurb that vaguely resembles the final concept,
which you can pause to read, if you want. It’s also included in my video notes on
my Ko-fi page that’s linked in the description. When I sent the new concept to Jordan, he
gave me a one-word reply: “Bingo.” Finally, I have a concept that works! It checks all
of my boxes: it’s high-concept, it has both familiar and original elements, I’m excited
about it, my business partners and critique partners are excited about, and I feel like
it’s marketable—it will snag readers’ attention.
I used my blurb as a jumping-off point for developing my character profiles, world-building
bible, and chapter-by-chapter outline. But you can use any plotting or pantsing method
you’d like to bring your concept to life—whatever inspires you to turn that concept into more
than just an idea. And as you flesh out the story, you can go back and revise.
The blurb you write for this exercise might not be the one that ends up on the back cover
of the book, but it can be a fruitful starting point for exploring ideas before you commit
to a new project. It’s a challenging creative exercise to condense your concept into under
three hundred words and convey it in a way that’s not only easy for outside readers
to comprehend but also captivating enough to make them want to know more about the story.
Of course, the execution of an idea matters even more than the idea itself. Fantastic
stories can have lackluster blurbs, and amazing ideas can fall short of readers’ expectations.
A blurb isn’t the end all, be all of a good story.
If you’d like to read Wish Hunter, I’d very much appreciate your support, and I’ve
included the buy links in the video description. It was a collaborative effort between me,
Hero Bowen, and Jordan Riley Swan, along with a number of other editors and beta readers
who helped along the way. You can also watch video interviews with me and my coconspirators
over on the Story Garden Publishing YouTube channel. I wish you all the best on your own
storytelling journeys.
What book blurb recently caught your attention? Leave me a comment with the book title, and
let me know why the concept intrigued you.
Whatever you do, keep writing.