How to write a good AO3 summary so people will actually want to read your fic
Summarize your story. Don’t be vague or coy. No hiding the pickle. There are so many fics and so little time. More people will skip over your fic if they don’t know what it’s about than will be turned away because it’s not about something they’re interested in. Tell the reader what happens!
A snippet is not a summary. People like to use lines of dialogue or excerpts to grab the reader’s attention. Very rarely do these snippets provide enough information to summarize the story. If you want to showcase a clever line of dialogue or the tone of the fic, include a line, but after the actual summary.
Make sure the summary is clear and written well. If it is messy and full of errors, people will assume the same of the fic.
Focus the summary on the characters and what happens to them or how they feel about each other. Fanfic readers come to see the characters they love do things they didn’t get to see in the source material. Let the audience know what the characters are doing and feeling.
Don’t forget to tell the reader what makes your story unique. Lots of fics are successful almost entirely because they follow a much-loved trope, so talk about that too (definitely in the tags at the very least), but when staring at the hundredth fic about one character pining for the other and deciding whether its worth it to read another, the reader is going to look for extra details that spike their interest.
Hint at the tone of your fic in the summary. If it’s light, give the summary a chatty tone. If it’s angst, make it hurt. If it’s plot-driven, go matter-of-fact. If it’s a character piece, meditative and dreamy.
Don’t contradict yourself. Don’t write a summary and then immediately undercut your description by trying to soften the blow. Just get the summary right from the get-go rather than mischaracterizing the work and then backpedaling with “trust me, not as angsty as it sounds” or “this is actually total fluff. And if it really is as angsty/dark as it sounds, let it be angsty with confidence. There are readers out there who will love your fic for what it is and will be turned off by a waffling summary.
Don’t reference yourself. The fic is the star of the summary, not your ego. Don’t explain why you wrote it (unless you’re listing a short prompt). And definitely don’t make any self-referential jokes, give your opinions on the characters, use the summary for foreshadowing, or compare it to other fics.
The summary is not the place for self deprecating humor, false modesty or insecurity. Don’t say it’s your first fic. Don’t apologize. Don’t say that English isn’t your first language. If you must, do this in the author’s notes, but better to not do it at all. The worst you might get if you don’t warn for these things is the suggestion you get a beta or some concrit. Most people will just skip your work entirely.
One paragraph only! Readers are skimming a list of summaries. They probably won’t stop to read all of yours. See points 10-13 for more on this.
Don’t use the summary for warnings. Warnings are for tags and author’s notes. Make sure you warn for all possible triggers, but these are reasons for people not to read the fic, not reasons to read it (if they are reasons to read it, then phrase them as part of the summary not as warnings). Warnings can easily overwhelm a summary to the point that it becomes about why the reader should probably just not read it rather than an enticement to read.
Remember the reader can also see your tags and that tags help the reader find the right fics. Put any tropes that might be selling points in the tags and leave the summary for information that is unique to the fic/gets at the backbone of the fic.
Remember you have the author’s notes. This is great place to tell us why you wrote the story, give a long prompt word-for-word, thank your betas, give more detailed warnings, reference inspirations, and gab on about yourself.
The summary is not the place for worldbuilding. Don’t explain the intricacies of your AU in the summary. If it’s a very strange world, you get one sentence max to describe that world. Spend the rest of the summary on the substantive character arcs. If the reader can’t understand your AU from the text of the fic itself, you’re doing it wrong.
It doesn’t hurt to sell yourself. Phrase things in a pithy, clever way, let the readers know you’re going to deliver on their favorite trope, and keep the tone confident. This is the inside flap of your hardback. This is the summary on amazon. Think about what would make you buy.
Do not write “I suck at writing summaries” in your summary. If you can’t trust yourself to write a summary, why should the reader trust you to write a good story?
This is good advice but I violate SO MANY of these. Especially being lazy and using a representative quote as the summary.
