Summaries that are crap.

[ladydrace]

Hey, I'm so sorry for this, but I'm in a crap mood. (loooooong story)

So I just want to express my annoyance with summaries that are just a random line grabbed from the fic. Isn't a 'summary' supposed to 'summarize' the fic? It doesn't tell me dick about the fic if the summary is something along the line of: "Merlin was tired, when he entered Arthur's rooms." No it doesn't.  Pisses me off.

Sorry if anyone on my f-list does this. I don't hate you. I'm just pissed.

That is all.

Comments

[lonespark.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I kind of like "summaries" like that. But they're not summaries. They should call it "tag-line" or "teaser" or something.

[cyranothe2nd.livejournal.com]

It depends. I have a really talented writer friend who masterfully crafts her taglines so that they are summaries. But generally I totally agree with you.

I also hate:
1. People that misspell common place/character names in their genre.
2. Mary Sues (forever and ever, hate!!! "Okay, in my story Harry Potter has a daughter and she's totally cool and powerful and her name is exactly like mine but she's totally NOT ME, okay? Totally not!")
3. People that don't write in the right dialect. For instance, using American slang in Harry Potter or not using tech lingo in Trek. It doesn't have to be prevalent, but you can't have a Phantom of the Opera (occurs in 1880) character saying things like, "That's cool." Come on--try a little!
4. People that write "I'm bad at summaries, just review" as their summary. Umm, if you can't write a summary, you probably can't write a story either.
5. Severe AU without cause. I like some AU fics but there needs to be a reason that the universe is altered, beyond the writer just wanting to make things easier for themselves ("OMG, I am going to write Harry Potter but instead of Hogwarts he lives in my town and goes to my school!") Some of the best fics I've read tweak something in the canon and produce a whole alternate universe around it, but those writers think it out, plan the story that way and are aware of WHY things are different.
6. Really really REALLY out of character romance without extenuating circumstances. If you want Dukat and Kira to fall in love, that's fine (I kinda want that myself) but you CANNOT write that without dealing with the issues of racism, genocide, etc. in the source material. They cannot just get together without there being any reason to forget how much they hate each other.
7. For that matter, OOC stuff in general. I mean, sure, you could write a fic where Hermione goes off and joins the Deatheaters but not without dealing with some serious canon issues which cannot and should not be ignored.
8. Crossovers. I cannot stress enough how much most crossovers suck. There are very very few worlds that can successfully coexist. And no, Star Wars and Star Trek are not two of them.
9. Warnings that leak the whole plot. I know, if there is sexual content, violence, etc you want to warn but don't specify which character is going to get killed/raped/tortured. *sheesh*
10. If you are going to write a sex scene, please have had sex and know something about the mechanics of it. Please!

[idanianspice.livejournal.com]

I'm not too crazy about those type of summaries, but I don't mind them if they at least point to what is going to take place in the fic. Like in your example, I would expect maybe, after a hard day of spellcasting, Merlin is going to get a nice full body massage and some hot handjob action from Arthur and then fall blissfully asleep. But if the story turns out to be them going to fight a dragon, or something, then I would really wonder WTF.