Jessie's Tips for Better Writing

Synopsis and Title Edit

SYNOPSIS AND TITLE EDIT

This is going to be a brief chapter, but I wanted to say something. For some of you, this really won't matter, but many of you may need to see this:

EDIT YOUR SYNOPSIS.

If you don't know, that's the summary that everybody sees before they go to read your book.

And that's the point: EVERYBODY sees it.

So the synopsis is the first thing that readers will see about your story, and it can either draw them in or turn them away.

This most likely is only about one paragraph or maybe a bunch of short sentences. It's probably not that long. Is it really that hard to run spellcheck on it and make sure the grammar is alright? If you have bad grammar and spelling in the synopsis, that's normally a sign for what the rest of the book will be like, and it Turns. Readers. Off. Trust me.

I can't tell you how many times I've clicked on a book where the cover looks interesting, only to see the synopsis and want to puke in agony because of the horrible grammar. Is this what you want your readers to think of you? Do you want them to see that and think you have no knowledge of the English language?

I'm not trying to be rude here, I'm trying to be honest. And honestly, first impressions when it comes to books matter. (Don't judge a book by it's cover doesn't really apply here, on a website with amateur writers where you usually CAN judge the book by it's cover.)

Before I go any further, I will acknowledge that for many of you, English is not your first language! That's so great that you're writing a book in a secondary language, and I truly applaud you for that. If you know, however, that your synopsis could use some work, find someone (My inbox is open anytime) to edit that small paragraph for you. It will help tremendously.

 People (Well, the ones who care anyways, and that's a large portion) aren't going to read a book if they think it will be written horribly. That would be an immense waste of time and a useless headache. They'll immediately click the back button, and go back to searching, and they won't even consider any of your other stories.

But here's another thing, if you get your synopsis to be sparkly clean and clear of grammar mistakes, but your story is full of everything that could possibly go wrong, that's false advertising. If you're going to clean up your synopsis, then why don't you clean up your book too? (Maybe go back and reread the Basic Grammar chapter I posted.)

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This brings me to another point, the title. I'm not going to tell you how to make a good title, not yet at least. But I want you to take a look at your title right now.

The mistake people often make on here is treating the title like it's a sentence. E.g. My life is yours. (The title doesn't really matter right now, I'm showing you how it's written.) That's not how it's supposed to be. If you'll notice, I capitalize some of the words in my title for this book.

Think of some well-known books. The Hunger Games. The Lord of the Rings. Do you see the capitalization? Natural sentences wouldn't be capitalized, but in titles the words are. You'll realize, though, that not ALL the words are capitalized. That's because the minor words (such as OF, THE, FOR, AND, IS, ARE, and more) are not supposed to be capitalized, unless they are the first word of the title. They aren't important.

The title I mentioned above? Better written it would be: "My Life is Yours"

So take a look at your title. If you're not sure which words should be capitalized, ask me, but make sure that it doesn't look like a regular sentence.

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Sorry if you thought I was going to tell you how to write an amazing synopsis or title, but I'm honestly not sure. I may post a chapter in the future with my tips and tricks, but I haven't even written a perfect synopsis yet, so I'm not the one to ask. Right now, at least.

Bye!

CHALLENGE: I think this one's obvious. Read your synopsis and title and MAKE SURE you don't have any grammar or spelling errors.