#summary writing

Warnings ⚠ : cussing! & ALL CHARACTERS ARE 16+ (probably old enough to date idk)

Pairing : Tsukishima Kei x f!reader

Type : Summary Writing

Summary : tsukishima invited his volleyball teammates to his home to hangout and eat suppers together at night, what they didn't know is that.. Tsukishima was dating you and they just figured it out NOW

"Baby my friends are coming over soon, you okay with that? " Tsukishima said politely as you turned your head to him, "oh sure! Is it your volleyball friends? " you asked curiously as he turned on his phone to check the messages "yeah" he said.

"Oh alright, I don't mind them having them around lmao" you said as you were doing your homework "oh they are here" Tsukishima said as he walked out of the door, you were 𝘵𝘰𝘰 curious to know his volleyball teammates so you followed.

Opening the door was tsukishima's job, the second his hand opened the door, Tanaka and Nishinoya bust inside with full laughter, "HAH! I TOLD YOU I WAS GONNA BE THE FIRST TO STEP IN TSUKISHIMA'S HOME!! " Tanaka mockingly said as Nishinoya denied.

"NO YOU LIAR! I WAS THE FIRST! " Nishinoya yelled as he landed a hard smack on tanakas back, "can you guys shut the fuck up? We are here to have a nice supper hangout.." Tsukishima annoyingly said as Daichi shot them a dead glare

"Eh.. Sorry.. " Nishinoya and Tanaka mumbled as Hinata slowly explored the house, "Oi Hinata, don't go explore yet, we need to help prepare dinner right? " Kageyama said as Hinata signed "okay.. ˚‧º·(˚ ˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ )‧º·˚"

"What are we eating for tonight? "

"Uhm, just some barbeque I guess? Yamaguchi is preparing them right now at the back. "

"BARBEQUE?!?!?! "

"I WANT SOME TOO! "

"TANAKA! LET'S HAVE A EATING COMPETITION! WINNER GETS TO HUG KIYOKO!! "

"BET!! "

"TANAKA! NISHINOYA! QUIET DOWN!!!! "

Everyone was happily eating and chewing on the barbeque, you decided to come out and eat some too, "eh? Who's that? " Tanaka said with heart shaped eyes, "she looks so pretty.. I ain't betraying kiyoko though!!!" Nishinoya said with a pout on his face.

"Baby, are there any barbeque left? " you said as everyone was staring at you weirdly, 𝘰𝘬.. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝙗𝙖𝙗𝙮? But oh.. People weren't ready to hear the 𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘴.

"Oh, yes we do. Have some here" Tsukishima kindly said as he placed some pork and beef on your plastic plate, "thanks baby! " you said as everyone silently observed, until when tsukishima turned his head to see everyone creepily staring at his soul..

"W-what the actual fuck? Why are you guys creepily staring at me like that?.. " tsukishima said as he became freaked out. "W-WHO WAS AND WHY WERE THEY CALLING YOU B-BABY?!?! " Tanaka suddenly jumped back. "Y-yeah.. WHO WAS THAT?!?!?! " nishinoya butted in, causing more noise than ever.

Tsukishima signed as Yamaguchi slowly giggled, "𝙤𝙝? 𝙎𝙝𝙚'𝙨 𝙢𝙮 𝙜𝙞𝙧𝙡𝙛𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙, 𝙞𝙙𝙞𝙤𝙩." Tsukishima said slowly laughing as everyone's jaw dropped.

They couldn't believe tsukishima.. Pulled a gorgeous delicious girl like 𝙮𝙤𝙪.

✩༄ ✞︎ ♫︎ ☘︎ ☼︎☂︎ ⚠︎ ☔︎⚠︎☟︎︎︎ ♪ ♡︎☠︎︎❣︎ ☹︎☻︎ ✩༄

Yohan is a good brother, great in fact.

He cooks. He cleans. He does all the chorus of their home.

Not only that, he is also great in studies. He ranks first in their school. He is really friendly. Kids like him too.

"Hayan...!"

And more than that Yohan loves her. He is her only family. Her brother. Her oppa.

"Hayan..."

Never in her life she ever thought she would be this frightened by the same soothing voice. Never in her whole life she ever dreamt of witnessing her sweet brother standing over dead bodies. Bathed in crimson, his pale delicate hand holding a bloody kitchen knife.

"Oppa....?"

He stilled. His heavy breathing coming at a steady rhythm. His crotched figure, straighting. Hayan's breathe hitched in anticipation and fear.

She doesn't know this boy standing in front of her. She have never seen him like this.

Yohan's wide eyed terrifying look turned blank when turning to her.

Then an absolutely breathtakingly innocent smile spread across his pale angelic features. Eyes crinkling is pretty crisents. The same smile she used to love so much. Oh so beautiful. So innocent. That Hayan absolutely forgot what was around them. What exactly transferred here.

"Welcome back, Hayan! Won't you give your oppa a hug?" He asked cheerily, as if there was not anything utterly wrong about this situation. As if he didn't commit murder.

...

Or in which Yohan is a psychopath and a patient of major personality disorder, roped into a murder mystery. And Hayan has deal with this whole mess in her own way. Which includes dealing with an overly suspicious but negotiating handsome detective, a nosy but helpful magician neighbore, a love sick Fashion student and a polar opposite but cute lesbian couple.

...

This idea popped into my head while I was having lunch...can you believe...?

This has been rotting in my drafts.

So as you probably know (or not, it’s cool either way!) I read a fair amount of fic during the weeks for my weekly rec list.  And I am shocked with the number of fics I saw scrolling through the tags without a summary!  This was me:

Which prompted this week’s tip.  Why you should have summaries and tips on writing them.  

Why You Should Include Summaries on All Your Stories and Chapters

1. Many people don’t read stories without summaries.  This includes me.  I do not read stories without summaries.  I like knowing a little bit about the story before I start reading.  I am not big into surprises.  Oh, is it fluff, is it angst?  

2. Trigger warnings may not be enough.  You may think “oh well I trigger warned I have done enough.”  No, sweetie.  I am fortunate to at the point in time not having any triggers, but I have squicks and my mood changes.  I may not want to read a particular kind of story. Your summary gives me clues on what may be in there.

3. It is the perfect way.to entice people to read.  A good summary can make or break whether someone reads your story or not.  The fic market is saturated, you want to be read.  A summary is a perfect way to do it.  

Things to Include in a Summary

- The main characters in the story. If your story has a ship or multiple ships, those characters should be mentioned in your story.  You don’t have to say about all the relationship but the main characters should be mentioned.

-The setting or AU premise.  Does your story take place in London, the past, alternate universe.  Is your character not in his or hers normal profession/role?  Such as a CEO, mobster, single parent, a parent, professor, etc.  

-The main conflict of your story. What is driving your story? What is the conflict?  What is your main character trying to accomplish (or not accomplish)?  You should let the readers know what the main point of your story.

Things Not to Include in a Summary

- Major spoilers.  If you have a big reveal in your story, such as a death, a marriage, etc.  Don’t put that in your summary, save it for the story.

- The ending.  Don’t give the whole thing away!  

- Anything that might be trigger someone.  Don’t go putting explicit stuff in there.  Don’t go into graphic detail.  Keep it light and breezy (or dark and stormy).

Summary Writing Tips

1. Don’t just cut and paste a portion of your story as your summary. I know this can be a tempting and popular choice for a summary but in my opinion, that rarely gives me a proper overview of the story.  Which is the whole purpose of the summary.  If you want to include an actual potion of your story, I would do it in addition to a summary.

2. Summaries can be a single sentence or a longer paragraph depending on the story. A summary is a brief statement of the main points of your story.  I find series need a longer summary than drabbles or one shots.  

Examples of short summaries:

Reader gives Loki his first blow job.

Steve Rogers takes the reader out of their first date.  Things don’t go as planned.

Tony is caught cheating and must deal with the fallout.  

Example of long summaries:

When Loki goes to ask his father for permission to marry, he is shocked to discover his destiny has already been made for him.  He is already betrothed to Sjofn, the daughter of the King of Vanaheim.  An arranged marriage to bring the two kingdoms closer together and strengthen the bond.  Never mind that Sjofn and Loki can’t stand each other.  

After The Battle of New York, Loki is sent to live at Avengers Tower as punishment for his misdeeds.  But it doesn’t mean he has to like it.   A year later, he has adjusted to life on Midgard but has avoided any romantic or emotional entanglements, still bitter over his lost love.  Dr. Alexis Randall is skilled at helping others fix their relationships as a couple therapist, but can’t help her own love life.  A chance encounter with Loki in a dive bar has life altering consequences for both of them.  Now, Alexis and Loki must figure out a way to co-habit without killing each other in the process, plus navigating impending parenthood and other roadblocks along the way.

-

Five years ago, Emma Masters just landed her first big acting gig on a soap opera.  While it is not much, it is an opportunity to grow.  While out celebrating, she meets up with a fellow actor, Tom Hiddleston.  While she doesn’t recognize any of his work, the two hit it off.  Before they know, they are getting hot and heavy in the elevator up to Tom’s room. Like ships passing in the night, the two never manage to meet again.

Now five years later, Emma is a heavy hitter in the prime time drama world and Tom is a Golden Globe winning movie star.  Their paths cross again but things have changed.  Will they do what they should or fall to their deepest desires?

3. Read the back of books you enjoy for ideas of good summaries.  Or another fun resource is Query Shark. 

So your summary is basically the back of the book for your story.  Read those summaries to get an idea of good ones and bad ones.  Query Shark is a literary agent who helps writers improve their query letters by critiquing them.  A huge part of query letters is a summary of the story.

4. Write a summary like a movie trailer.

Another fun exercise is to write your like a movie trailer would read.  You know the bit “In a world...” or “Meet...”.  Have some fun with it.  Try different things! Be silly.  Be serious, have some fun!

It’s a truth universally accepted that one of the most difficult parts of writing and posting a story is writing an engaging summary. Let’s be honest with each other: we all suck at it, think we suck at it, or lack the confidence to say we don’t suck at it. There’s no easy answer or formula to share but I do have a few observations from many years of voracious reading to share. Take what you will, add what you wish, and best of luck to all.

Do

Ask pressing and thought-provoking questions with complex answers. Readers tend to be the curious sort, especially when they don’t have all the answers.

Drop hints about future conflict, major plot points, and crises. A little seed of concern and excitement can lure readers, and when it’s planted, it can grow into something that will draw readers like corpse flowers draw flies.

Use proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar, and do a decent job of spelling/grammar checking. If your summary is full of uncapitalized i’s, lacks any periods whatsoever, and has several misspelled words, discerning readers won’t even bother.

Tempt with bits of engaging dialogue, snippets of narration, or poignant lines from your story. What better to hook readers on your story than the story itself?

Be vague enough to leave them wondering, but open enough to inspire curiosity. Being too vague is like fishing without bait; being too detailed is like throwing a baited hook in a pond full of fresh chum. It’s important to find a good balance if you want to catch readers.

Read more than you write - and I don’t mean reading fanfiction. Aim high, explore new genres, and pay attention to what you enjoy about the stories. When you find something you enjoy, study it, take note of what you like about it, and put your own spin on it.

Practice summarizing books and stories you’ve read, then ‘grade’ those summaries. When you’re writing summaries for your own stories, write several drafts before posting so you can work out the kinks ahead of time. Few people are effective writers when put on the spot, and practice makes perfect.

Don’t

Ask questions that can be answered with yes/no or anything less than a few sentences. Instead of “Will they get together?” try “How can they move past ___ and ___?” or “What will it take to get these two idiots together?”

Say “Sorry, I’m bad at summaries.” Honey, we’re all bad at them. What separates the accomplished from the n00bs is doing your best to improve your summaries instead of asking for a handicap outright. Fake it ‘til you make it, and with practice, you will make it.

In fanfiction: if you use OCs, make sure your summary includes important information about Canon characters. Most fanfic readers are already prejudiced against original characters in fanfiction; if your summary insinuates that the story is “all about the OC,” many readers will jump on the Mary-Sue-hate-wagon and run you down like an armadillo on Route 66.

Say “Just read the story.” Most who comply with that sort of demand are bored senseless or has no sense to begin with, and any discerning readers who give your story a try will likely flame or go in with their minds already made up.

“Use too many words to get across what can be put into a much more concise summary, or overly long run-on sentences which can be easily split into more digestible sentences, because heck, that just bores people and can really get confusing if you aren’t careful, and the last thing you want to do is bore your readers before they even hit the first chapter.” If you got lost or bored there...I rest my case.

In original fiction: assume your readers will already know or easily recognize anything about the story without being told. Vampires? Mention it. Fairies? Flaunt them. Something entirely new your readers may not have seen before? Get your readers excited with details and teasers!

Be careful with:

Phrases like “In a world where,” “in a time of,” and other cliches. If it makes you roll your eyes at the movie previews, it’ll probably make your readers roll their eyes.

Excessive slang, profanity, and ‘author-to-reader’ comments in the summary. Discerning readers can be put off by too many of these.

Excessive brevity.

The day had been anything but uneventful. 

Berrod shifted in his bed roll and was met with a slight bump back from his chocobo. To beat the chill of the night air in Oriens he had laid close to the feathery beast -- not that he would have had much choice otherwise. There were a dozen other refugees and four pack chocobos piled into the small clearing of the former Castrum -- the only space the Alliance could afford them. Having endured the journey from Thanalan however, Berrod could say with confidence that none of them were weak, or lacking. They made their camp, set up their bed rolls -- even a wary perimeter, even though Berrod knew it wasn’t necessary here. It made no sense telling them. They’d learn in time. 

As he settled into comfort, Berrod felt energy seep from his limbs. It was his body’s way of committing to the rest he had set himself up for. Yet, his mind burned as bright as a torch. Much had happened, from the odd armoured knight in the woods, to the elder’s visit and the resulting fiasco in the Dimwold. The matter of the knight -- the ‘forest knight’ Berrod had dubbed him, when speaking of it to his companion -- was a mostly straightforward thing; a strange armoured man with a blade and odd magics that seemed based on the earth and life there. He had been outnumbered, caught on the wayside of the Spire road by a gang of poachers. Berrod chanced to be scouting the way to the wall and gave himself no choice but to assist, even if he wasn’t sure that the knight was even a mortal man until he saw him bleed. The knight fought so fervently in defense of the wood that Berrod had begun to wonder if his own presence had been necessary at all. Nevertheless, after the battle the pair had exchanged short words, and Berrod was rewarded with the key to unlocking the effectiveness of one of his prayers...as exhausting as the prayer itself was. It was half the reason he could barely move in the bed roll. 

With the battle done, the forest knight aided Berrod in escorting the refugees to the border, where they left him behind with thanks and passed through the wall into Oriens. Once Berrod had been sure of the man’s...mortality via seeing him bleed, he had gauged his stature (and tail-lessness) to judge him as hyur. Further to that, when tending to the knight’s wounds, he had seen dark skin. A highlander -- likely from over the wall, by his own judgement, and the way the fellow had seemed to wax wistful over the mention of returning home. It was in that spirit that Berrod unsubtly provided an offer for the knight to come with them...though it was smoothly and politely glossed over. It didn’t matter too much, he had the feeling that they would meet again in time. 

His day had not ended there -- once he had made sure that the refugees were comfortably settled in Oriens, he excused himself to attend a regular gathering of monks and other like minds at a cabin in the Dimwold. There, he was introduced to the guest speaker for the evening, an elder who had spent the past three decades in hermitage in the mountains -- if her age had been mentioned, it eluded him. As a result, he simply just assumed she was in her nineties. The accuracy of that mattered little to him. They say around the fire as she spoke of her life -- a life of parallels to his that bothered and incensed him. Berrod knew the difference between a time to speak and a time to listen, however, and remained without comment for most of what she shared. 

His frustrations compounded when they were spurred into action -- somehow Flora had found herself...no, not somehow. She had left the sanctuary he had assured her and ended up assaulted as a result. Anger aside, there was nothing more important than aiding in saving her life, and so he recalled the forest knight’s brief lesson in clemency to provide support to his companion’s healing. The effort was a success, but cost him the energy that would be needed to aid the others in fighting -- and so, he stayed on the sidelines and waited. From there, he was able to observe much and more...including patterns in the behaviour of his peers that displeased him deeply. For a while he debated whether it was his place anymore to even address such things with them...but he remembered how the idea of withdrawal and inaction infuriated him. No, he would say his piece to them, and from there the torch would be passed for them to do with it what they would. More than once he did wonder if leaving the monkhood was a mistake -- but those doubts were quickly smothered by his sense of purpose. He was still there among them, the only thing that had changed was how he served.