Solicitation for Summary help

#1
So my little story Overseer is getting off to a good start, but it does have one failing problem (which a reader pointed out, and I agree with). The Summary is...lacking. It's an accurate summary, but being accurate doesn't mean being interesting.

Sadly for all my wealth of words when writing the story, I am stumped when it comes to that little monster of a summary. If someone could provide some pointers, help, feedback (or even a fully rewritten summary 8D), I would be much obliged. Thank you.

Overseer
{| Overseer is a proud initiate of The Order of Phantasmal Architects.  A group of authors of high quality original fiction. See link for other great works.|}

RE: Solicitation for Summary help

#2
Hm. I'm not sure how helpful I can be but I will attempt to assist.

This probably isn't a good example since I don't really have many readers, but the summary for my own Web Novel is:

'Arukorstza' Wrote: Dying what our main character calls ‘a stupid death’ our main character finds out that death isn’t the end and is only the beginning of a new life as a ‘Creator of worlds’.

A Creator of world’s one set back is a lack of money and so our main character turns to earning money as a Heroes assistant.

Yours is more descriptive:

'Solistia' Wrote: An observational account of a disembodied entity that has the power to influence a race of mildly intelligent lizard creatures. Using that power causes the lizards to develop and slowly evolve over generations. Memories of a previous life often serve as inspiration, but also generate questions as to whom the entity might have been before it became an Overseer.

As I said I'm not very popular. So I'm probably wrong about this. But I think it's more catching to describe board and interesting evens that make people want to find out more.

For example, my summary begins with an event, the "mc dies and then goes on to experience that there is more after death and becomes a 'Creator'". This is a broad event that some would find interesting or they may become curious as to how that came to be.

After that then to maybe grab the interest of someone not purely driven by curiosity, add in a 'dilemma' or a bigger event that occurs. "A Creator of world’s one set back is a lack of money" it explains something of interest. And then there is a result, "so our mc turns to earning money as a Heroes assistant.".

-Event
-Dilemma
-Result

I will admit that my summary is actually maybe not very good.

But mine is simple, can be read at a glace and invites people to ask their own questions, only to have them answered by reading the story.

Obviously not all Summaries are the same, yours is good in it's own way, but the way you've gone about writing it leaves nothing to the imagination.

Your summary is descriptive but doesn't need to be so definite:

-mc exists
-Lizards mutate
-Questions

This is what you explain in your summary. You go into more detail than you need to in order to convey these things.

"An entity watches a race of lizards and possess power to change them. Using it's powers it gifts the lizards with developments and evolution. The entity takes inspiration from it's memories of a past life, but these memories only generate more questions."

Is the same thing, but shortened and with an air of mystery. This makes me curious as to how the entity improves the lizards and makes me interested in finding out more about the entity.

After that it's up to the readers to decide from your summary if this is something they want to read or not.

This is probably one of the only situations in which less is actually more.

Of course it's fine to have a longer summary, but 'this is this is these are these ways because that happened' and 'that happens because of this and this after these and when that did these things', you don't need to explain anything to them. You need only to write what happens as broadly as possible, so that they can decide if this is something they want to read or not.

Of course I'm not one of the experienced Authors on RRL and if someone else has any advise then it's probably just as valid as mine.

I've read the first three chapters so far and it is rather enjoyable, I will continue reading.

Thank you for your time.
[ Tale of the Elder Witch ]: Long Hiatus... thinking about picking back up (Planned Rewrite #3)
[ Paper Weight ]: Long Hiatus
[ <Untitled Work> ]: Thinking about something with dungeons, because those are all the rage now days... (In Planning)

RE: Solicitation for Summary help

#3
That was actually incredibly insightful, so I thank you very much. I'm gonna read through your response again, and see if I can touch on some of those points while remaining 'mysterious' to generate that curiosity that drives people to read!

Many cookies for you ♥♥
{| Overseer is a proud initiate of The Order of Phantasmal Architects.  A group of authors of high quality original fiction. See link for other great works.|}