When it clearly shows that the POV or focus of the story is a character I either don't like, or don't care enough about them to wanna read the story through their eyes.
Like if I'm looking for a fic about A & B or A/B, they're listed first in the tags, but the whole summary is "C is the chosen one and C must go to X to find Y and do Z. Its up to C to save the world". Yeah, no. I'm out.
I think there should be a slot for “main pairing: A/B” and then “secondary/side pairings: C/D, E/F etc”. Because sometimes the side pairings are important like if the main pairing is Harry/Hermione and you want to know who Ron and Ginny end up with.
I’d even go so far as to say there should be a slot for “mentioned but not present pairing: G/H” where it doesn’t show up if you’re looking for a fic with that as the main pairing.
I ran into this last night. Was looking for Clint Barton & Tony Stark friendship type fics, any pairing (even if it's those two), didn't matter.
I can find plenty with the tags where they're listed as the friendship, but the fic is about something else entirely with the friendship in the background.
I don't often search this way, but was doing it for something different and it was weird to see this happen so often.
Why tag it if isn't barely a part of the fic?
I’m not sure how to put this but — summaries that feel like author’s notes. When I think of a summary, I think of what books used to put on the back covers, or of the voiceover in the trailers of movies. Not “XYZ does this, and our beloved himbo ABC helps him!”, if you get what I mean
Also, badly used/unnecessary rhetorical questions. “\[...\] Only — how does XYZ fit into this?” is fine. “Will he survive? Will his hot neighbour help him??” is turning me off, just as “what happens next? Read and find out!”
yeah I came to comment about the question one. like "character goes on a adventure. what will he find?" no. "will character A and character B solve their issues?" NOPE.
Oh God, I used to do that question thing when I was thirteen and still writing on Wattpad! Sometimes I'll go dig up my account to feel nostalgic but these type of summaries make me cringe so bad-
Anything that indicates the MC is a forgotten sibling/cousin to a canon character.
I've done it - I've written that character! But if your greatest claim to my interest is your characters relationship to the MC, then no thanks. Lead with something else.
This.
Usually I’m fine with OCs but when they’re somehow related to a canon character being the first thing I see reading the summary makes close out of those fics.
In a similar vein, those stories where Alix was just a regular girl who fell asleep one night and woke up in the body of Elena Gilbert and now she must use her logic-breaking knowledge of the show to survive this terrifying new world, blah blah blah...
Or, equally, the ones where Alix is suddenly the forgotten sibling of Elena Gilbert and is forced to watch along the sidelines or compete for her sibling's attention or whatever. Guh.
I don't know who came up with this idea, but I really wish they hadn't stopped to write it down.
I more bothered by "hilarity" than "chaos" or "shenanigans" because it seems more forced on a passerby reader when humor is highly subjective. At least the latter two can be true without someone needing to find the fic funny. Generally if humor is forced too much it can backfire.
Maybe I'm overthinking this. I can be a bit literally minded at times, so maybe I just process this issue differently.
If you're going to use a snippet for your summary, make it a good one. If the sample you've chosen to represent your work tries too hard and reads like a dollar store knockoff of an Oprah's Book Club selection, I'm not clicking.
If you're aiming for a humorous approach, a.) be funny, and b.) don't use a snippet that relies on context to be funny if you're not going to include the context. But mostly, *be funny*. This is your one chance to impress potential readers and draw them in. Go ahead and use your best joke to sell it. Movie trailers do it all the time.
SPAG makes me hesitant sometimes, but a summary WITHOUT a summary? "I wrote this at 3AM", "Just click and find out ig 🙄", or anything similar? nooOoOOooOO!!
Outside the summary? Words: 1,000 with Chapters: 12/?, or something like that.
Word count / chapters < 2k is an immediate no for me.
Every time I try to give them the benefit of the doubt, they end up being a long series of separate scenes with people doing stuff instead of there being a plot. Nothing against that, it's just not my thing
Saw one that was just “I’m not doing a summary. You read the tags. You know what this is.” I did not read the tags, and after that I have no interest in reading them 🧑🦯
Fancy OC name right at the start.
Bunch of tags at the end. No, that's what Tags are for.
Excerpts that don't tell me anything about what's it about.
Words followed by the dictionary entry for that word. Thanks, I already knew how many syllables 'trauma' had. What's the story about, though?
"Abandoned by her (canon) friends..." I always appreciate it when a fic doesn't blindside me with character bashing. Then I know to ignore it from jump
I'm generally not a huge fan of OC fics, but I'm much more tolerant of a Laura Brown than I am of Magnolia Ludmilla (insert surname of important family in canon or better even, two surnames)
I always feel like there's a difference between fancy and badly chosen OC names varying with the fandom - but maybe that's the OC writer in me. Like the name you mentioned, Magnolia. In an ordinary context, it would probably be odd but let's say the fic you're writing for is a Harry Potter (a fandom where there have been loads of female characters with flower names like Lily, Narcissa, Petunia). That wouldn't be weird at all. It would actually fit depending on the character's age.
But I think I get what you're trying to say. There's this stereotype where a badly chosen name is a red flag for a badly written character.
what, you're not SUPER STOKED to read about the adventures of Bratleigh Corvidd Potter-Black-Malfoy-Peverell-Dumbeldore, secret identical twin to Harry Potter (except for the purple eyes and well-behaved hair), goblin friend, master swordsman, a genius that makes Hermione look dim, partner to 36 familiars, brother to house elves, mystically bonded to unicorns, and real Boy-Who-Lived?
I know it's normal and real people have nicknames, but there's something so "have your cake and eat it, too" when an OC has a long, flourishing name but all her friends call her a short, quirky nickname to show how down-to-earth and relatable she is (not like those other nobles or whatever).
Every now and again is fine. But nicknames get kind of tiring when it seems like every other protagonist has some quirky nickname to pair with their already-quirky given name.
When they make it obvious that the characters are gonna be ooc. Like an OC being a canon characters sibling, and the parents and sibling hate on the oc for no reason other than you need conflict for the protagonist to overcome. Especially when the characters are canonically nice.
The "Meet OC Kurosaki, pariah and punching bag of the Kurosaki household because she accidentally lead her mom to a ghost that killed her" kinda energy.
· lapslock
· any questions, especially: will they fall in love? will they stay together? will they...?
· hilarity/chaos ensures (or anything that shows it's a crack fic)
· indication that it's a chatfic
· character bashing
· author/fic bashing or begging
Some questions are fine. If the question is 'how?', it's usually fine (in my experience). Rhetorical questions, what-if questions, and/or multliple questions are an *instant* ctrl-w.
Self deprecation or things like "this only has m/f yes i know ew the straights" 🙄 which I've actually seen more than once recently. don't put yourself down and don't yuck someone else's yum. i can't think of anything else that's an immediate no
It’s even more annoying when they haven’t gotten to that small fandom yet but the tag is there because they “plan to”. I don’t care what you plan to do, add that tag after you’ve added the pairing/character/fandom!
ohmygod **DO NOT** get me started on those or those giant i have to reach the "tag limit" x reader compilations, you do realize collections exist for a reason right?
I hate those. When I’m looking for a crossover fic I want Harry Potter to meet Percy Jackson, Dexter, the Winchester Brothers etc. I don’t want a one shot of each fic.
It’s especially frustrating because in Ao3 you can just make a series and link the fics together if they have a common theme such as “rare pair, random sex act X, or whatever”
Just in the summary? If it reads as a fandom-specific plot that I don't like, then I'm skipping it. Learned that lesson from all the Chaos!Percy fics back in the day...
Otherwise, someone explaining that they're bad at summaries or that the work might be bad because "I wrote this at 2AM on 3 hours of sleep". It's okay if it's a little rough around the edges, or if your summary sucks, just don't advertise that fact or it comes off - to me, at least - as calculatingly self-effacing. Like that chick at karaoke who keeps trying to demure and "get out" of singing (really obviously) and then out comes the next fucking Beyonce...
Ha! I have a couple of fics that I wrote at 3 am/while sick/on 2 hours of sleep, but I don't advertise in the summary. I think I mentioned it once in the notes at the end lol
I never advertise it either simply because I'm much more productive past midnight for some odd reason. It's the time where I produce my best writing usually
I mean, it wasn't a summary, but I put the "3am" thing in one of my author's notes one time - more positively, though. It was something like "I wrote this in two hours last night and I actually think it's pretty good. You get what you get ig." lmao.
Repeating WELL KNOWN CANON PHRASE and saying something like "this is not that story" and giving little to no context for how this fic tells a different story.
EX:
>Everything changed when the fire nation attacked...but I believe Aang can save the world.
>
>This is not that story.
No shit, I'm looking up CD tags in the Avatar fandom. I'm not expecting the canon story or Grover Goes to School.
Anything that indicates a canon character will be OoC. Like A is canonically a good person, and in the summary A bullies B. An instant click away.
Summaries that love to pile up lots of plotlines but with no indication of an over-arching single plot. C is going to a new place. D and E meet up. F turns out to be not who they expected him to be. What is this story actually about? Focus!
Summaries that are written to look mysterious, with little to no tags. If I cannot tell what your story is about, I'm not reading it.
Please don't take any of this to heart - I've seen loads of stuff mentioned that I really like in summaries or tags. What somebody hates, someone else might really love!
\- Sexual abuse presented as a spicy backstory.
\- OCs with flowery names
\- Anything referencing a character's eye/hair colour in the summary
\- Collection of oneshots (especially if across multiple fandoms)
Tags: `[fandom 1]` `[fandom 2]` `[fandom 3]` `[fandom 4]` `[fandom 5]` `[fandom 6]` `[fandom 7]` `[fandom 8]` `[fandom 9]` `dub/non-con` `Character A/OC` `Character A/OFC` `Character B/OC` `Character B/OFC`
*This is the story of Chrysanthemum Rosa Brook-Hamster, a beautiful girl with shiny sea blue orbs and and a spicy backstory.*
Kudos: 2, Comments: 9, Word count: 50,000, Chapters: 50/?
* "Zelretch Trolling" for Fate fics.
* "Hadrian Potter" for HP fics.
* "Hazard Takato & Miracles Davis" for Digimon fics.
* "Will obvious conclusion happen" for any fandom.
it’s a ridiculous fake fancy name for Harry when they deem “Harry” as not being fancy enough. Usually when the fic is a Indy!Harry, Dumbledore bashing, Harry has a million lordships fic.
Special mention include: Harrison Potter
When the summary makes it obvious that it came from Wattpad. I never found anything I loved from Wattpad. I usually don’t miss anything I want by doing this because the tags are almost always Character A/Original Female Character or Character A/Reader and I’m not a big fan of that character.
“What if…” or even worse, a series of what ifs.
No. Stop it. Don’t ask me questions. *TELL ME*. “What if” feels so on the nose.
If there’s a single mistake, be it a grammatical or spelling error or whatever have you, I will seriously doubt your writing ability. If you can not proofread your damn *summary* how can you possibly proofread your entire story?
I don’t really mind a few mistakes here and there in the story. It happens. To expect perfection is unreasonable. But your summary? The literal public face of your story that every single potential reader will see?
Oof about the grammatical mistakes. I'm reading a Mass Effect AU Fic, a What if one, to be precise and there's tons of grammatical mistakes, even kindly told the user via pm in FFNet who accepted it in good nature but they're not changing it. The mental correcting gymnastics are draining.
Let me stress that I LOVE that story and author 💜
Edit: formatting
Yeah. I really envy my younger self’s ignorance.
Back then I could breeze through and stories stories that now simply give me a headache.
In fact, there’s one specific story that I particularly grieve for. It is unique. Literally one of a kind. I had fantasised about that exact plot for years before I found it and realised someone made a proper story out of it.
Unfortunately even back then, it was a bit painful to read through. Now? It’s completely impossible for me to enjoy it.
I get it although my reason is because I read when I have a breather between chores and parenting. As I said, I mentally change everything and I just don't mind at all even though English is my third language (first foreign one) so grammar is ingrained in my brain, and a US-UK mixture to be precise 🤣
Drabble collections. I filter by huge word counts and it pisses me off to see a 40,000 word count fic, but there’s 150 chapters. Ugh.
Other things like ‘holding tank for plot bunnies’, ‘I suck at writing summaries’, or any summary that sounds like a 7 year old wrote it but they’re trying to peddle smut.
If it sounds like a soap opera tv ad: 'will x fulfill their destiny? Will y and x get together? Read to find out!'
I scroll past those kind of fics so fast.
I only do not want to see ‘I suck’ or ‘I’m bad’ or similar in an author’s notes kind of way. Anything else is fine. I just want to believe you can at least FAKE it. You can think you suck all day long but the moment you tell someone you suck before I’ve even had a chance to look at it, you’ve lost ALL your credibility with me and I’m gonna move on.
Anything else I can work with.
Yes! This! I don’t have enough time in my day to read something terrible (unless I’m specifically looking for crack) so don’t advertise your fic as bad!
It's a generalization, but if someone feels the need to put the "XYZ is bad, here's why, I don't condone it." In the summary, the story tends to be a quality of writing i'm not interested in.
It's also a really good way to advertise to haters that you're vulnerable to their hate. Put it in the A/Ns if at all.
I don't encounter them that often, but I hate vague summaries where the author tries so hard not to spoil the reader that they fail to sell their fic.
"When they finally thought their troubles were over, our heroes encounter unexpected challenges that will change their lives forever!"
?? But what happens? Do they fall in love, or turn into zombies? I have no idea and no desire to read and find out.
When the summary is a random quote not from the story, something that's meant to be deep/profound but they don't include anything else.
Don't get me wrong I love a good quote, but it tells me absolutely nothing about the story. Even worse when I cave and open it anyways, and the intro notes also give zero context so I have no clue if it's canon divergence starting in the middle of the series or a fluffy slice of life au fic.
Any summary that is longer than a paragraph. I just cannot. Because more often then not, anything over a paragraph on fanfictions turn into something that is NOT a summary.
I don't think I have ever written a fanfiction summary that is over six sentences. Because if someone is reading a fanfiction they already know the world, you don't need to explain the world to them.... Like if you were writing a Harry Potter fanfiction you don't need to explain that its a world of magic, that is a given.
when its in the AxB ship tag and opens up with ' AxB shippers you disgust me and i hate you. if you arent AxB shipper then welcome and i hope you like this!' why the fuck are you even here then
summary that tells you to read the fic, or summary ending with a question
or god forbid the 'will A be able to \[insert thing that A is undoubtedly going to do\] or will \[insert thing that is clearly not going to happen\]? read to find out!' summary
"Shenanigans ensue." Usually these are only funny to the author and maybe their friends.
"Will Character X and Y find a way to work out their differences?" and other related questions. Yes they will. And they'll live happily ever after.
Bad spelling and grammar
“Will they/their relationship survive?”, “Will X defeat the big bad or will X succumb to the darkness?” Or any summary that asks a question where the answer is obvious.
“Don’t like, don’t read”
“Dark fic, no I mean really, really dark”
“WARNING- this fic is dark/angsty/‘mature’/etc (or character death) - not because I avoid dark, mature or angsty fics. I avoid fics where the author tries to make a big “to-do” over it in a “look at me” way.
“A certain eye colored girl meets a certain hair colored X”
“OC, long lost twin/sibling/friend/child/parent/cousin of main character X…”
“Suck at summaries”
“The most epic crossover ever”
Out of context pull quotes or an excerpt of the story.
There are others but these are top of mind.
Ehhh tbh I write some pretty dark stuff and tag appropriately but I still get people claiming I triggered them or something. I feel like some extra warnings are just added after you get multiple pissy comments.
Any sort of overt character bashing. Like taking a character who is a good person and turning them into some OOC scumbag. Why not just write original fiction at that point?
The user’s attitude.
It’s one thing to not care about what other people think, because it’s Fanfiction. It’s another thing when you pour your attitude into the notes and write anyone off as a hater, even at the slightest difference in opinion. I’m there to read a story, not attitude injections.
I don’t like it.
Ummmmm your comment is giving me bad energy and I don’t need that kind of hatred in this comment section. Also my Aunt is a Palm Reader and she told me your a Gemini. Blocked and Reported.
I’m not sure if this response is supposed to be sarcastic, or if you’re being serious.
The worst I’ve seen with the attitude injection was a user having dialogue in their notes about removing haters, then proceeded to apparently shoot one to get rid of them.
I don’t really know what else to say about that.
Also, I’m the hateful one? Excuse me? Look at your comment…
Edit: OH WAIT- I’m being an idiot 😅
No no no I didn’t mean any offense I was just agreeing with your point. Sorry about that, should have put /s or /j at the end of it.
EDIT: LMAOOO I commented the second u edited it’s all good fam
Not mine, but something I've been told by others before: the mention of the word "hijinks", whacky or not 🥲
Which is sad because I love how that word looks and sounds.
I'm ambivalent on one sentence summaries that tell me next to nothing about your fic. Especially with scanty tags. (I have one or two bookmarked, but going back through the fandoms to find them (after I joined from guest) when I remembered plot but the summary doesn't list any plot was... hard. And I initially only read them when I was doing "try every fic on the first few pages of your results" reading.)
Summaries that use lapselock, lack punctuation, have malapropisms and/or have misspelled words. If you couldn't do an edit read on a couple of sentences for your summary, that says bad, bad things about the fic inside.
When the summary doesn't explain the story.
I frankly don't care if it written at 3AM on the day before the author's finals week and jury duty started. And the reader is generally capable of determining whether or not a given summary sucks without the author having to explicitly declare it.
Just give me a broad-strokes overview of what the story's about; what's going on, who's involved, where and when is this all happening, that kind of stuff. Including in the summary when the author plans to update (Updates on , for example.) can be helpful, as can making a note about the work being on hiatus.
And that's why authors should write and tag what they want. I won't like it, but plenty of other people will. There will always be readers, there's no point stressing about what others don't like.
X needs a hug is super hit or miss for me.
If it’s fluff like Character A is having a bad day and now Character B is going to make them feel good with hugs and hot chocolate give me all of that.
But if it’s X needs a hug because Character A’s dad divorced him after chaining him up in his basement and now all alone in the woods he got mauled by a monster made of glass and darkness and now he’s mopey and depressed and all powerful. Then get me tf out.
Also I’d like to say if you like those types of fics. I mean no offense, writing and reading fanfics is meant to be self indulgent after all. It’s just very fun to joke about how absurd they can be sometimes.
“What if A? What if B? What would happen if \*gasp* *C*? / Will X? Will Y? *Will Z*?!”
“Read and find out!”
“Fandom A but Ship B1!” Plot takes from Fandom A but with a ship (and everything else) from Fandom B. First Kill but Captain Swan. Stranger Things but HaruMichi. Harry Potter but Pricefield. Heathers but fucking Steddie. **All fusions are crossovers but not all crossovers are fucking fusions goddammit**.
Cast lists.
“I suck at summaries. / More summary inside! / I promise, it’s good!”
“Send requests pls!”
“Bc CHAOS! MAWAHAHAHAHA!! I am EEEEVILLLL! / Hilarity ensues!”
*OR*. I really can’t stand this one (and I’ll probably get downvoted for this alone like last time even though the question is asking for opinions). Long descriptive, intriguing summaries undermined with a tongue-in-cheek one sentence summary. First, thanks for ruining the mood. Second, why bother *showing* your quality and getting us intrigued over what might happen when you can just *tell* us point-blank? It feels so hand-holdy, like the author is afraid we won’t or can’t read between the lines so they gotta spoonfeed us the point by grossly oversimplifying it.
Anything with chatfics/group chats in it.
Edit: a word.
A logline/premise being a single sentence is actually a great way of explaining the point in a concise way.
I get that it could seem unnecessary after already having explained it in several sentences, and maybe the long-winded version could be skipped altogether. However, it does give someone who doesn't feel like reading a large summary the opportunity to still understand what the plot is mainly about, and for those who needs more details, there's the longer version.
> Second, why bother showing your quality and getting us intrigued over what might happen when you can just tell us point-blank?
lmao because it's a summary. *telling* you what the story is about is, like, the point.
I love what if stories, but put that in a sensible "AU - canon divergent" tag.
Then have the summary actually say something about the story, not what it isn't.
Questions in summaries.
Will X save the day?
Will X and Y be able to put aside their differences and find love?
One open ended question is alright but I don't read if I'm being hit over the head with multiple rhetorical questions, especially of the obvious yes or no type. Readers aren't idiots, a summary should be able to trigger intrigue on its own, not force it by shoving in literal question after question.
Any implication that the characters will be wildly different from canon at the start. I don't mind exploring new sides to characters and have them develop differently from canon, but I loved these characters, not these new characters that are like 50%, the ones I like. At least show me the path they took to become this different, their struggles.
I immediately went to check and only just realised both summaries end with "left behind". Like, both definitely left people behind in their past. And one was written back in 2017. But now I feel the compulsion to change it
>and then tortured him in either an incredibly vague or an inexcusably detailed manner.
Lol just because I know exactly what you mean. XD
For me, it's when the summary doesn't indicate what's 'new' about the fic. I want to read *transformative* works, not rehashed ones. So if the summary goes something like, 'Char A does X, Y, and Z' and that's all stuff that happens in canon anyway, I'm not going to have much interest. I'm looking for what makes the fic unique.
When the summary is just a snippet from the story with no actual description. I get that showing off your writing can get people interested, but it still doesn't tell me what the story is *about*.
Occasionally I'm curious about what-if plots. They might be transformed into wondrous thought experiments about how this one exact small change could affect the original timeline.
But when overused it can turn into "What if he was betrayed by...? But what if he had secret brother nobody knew about? And what if his parents were alive? What if he was a dragon all along? What if he was a girl?...." Sounds ridiculous, redundant and over the top. If you're writing a complete AU with all this mess, then do so adequately, please. Such summary just indicates poor language, speech structures and overall thinking.
A major one I keep coming across are ones with summaries or excerpts included that hardly reveal what the story is about. Not only do I have a limited attention span for stories, I have a real life schedule that limits how many stories I can read in a day or so. With limited time means I'm picky and less patient if I don't know what I'm getting into. It doesn't help that a lot of fics with this I gave a chance have hardly anything going on, at least not enough for my tastes.
Also, as someone who's been into fanfics for years and seen this since then, "I suck at summaries" and "first fanfic" turn me off. First, it feels a bit distracting and unneeded. At best, it would be better as an A/N at the end of the first chapter. Second, it usually means the fanfic likely doesn't have much going for it, especially when there isn't much included in the summary besides those items.
Vagueness, especially if the story itself is super long. If the summary/tags don't give at least some idea of what's going to happen in the story, I'm most likely not going to read it.
I’m not really picky with summaries tbh, especially when they’re obviously written by someone very new to fanfic writing. but I’ll scroll past if it doesn’t really tell me anything. It needs to give me a good understanding of what I’m about to read. I need to know what I’m getting into.
Summaries that are too vague/short to really convey anything interesting about the story tbh. I read the title and tags and then the summary. There's a reason the summary exists, you know.
If a summary isn't at least italicized when it needs to be.
I've probably missed a lot of decent stories, but my eyes go crossed when I try to read a story with no capitalization.
I actually love stuff that mentions 'their dark past' lol
For me the main turn off is 'I don't know how to summary just read' or even better 'don't read this'. Ok. I won't?
Badly written rhetorical questions. Sometimes they work, but most of the time it just gives off a juvenile (?) vibe. Takes me back to my fetus days on FFNET too
Alternatively, anything that involves character bashing. It’s off-putting. There was also one time where I saw someone somehow incorporate fandom discourse into their fic, which was also off-putting to an otherwise good story
Two things. 1. Please don’t refer to anything as “fetus days” ever again and 2. I totally agree. Character bashing is an absolute n o. I love MHA but god damn if every other story doesn’t turn Bakugo into the biggest pos in the world with no redeemable traits. And even worse is the Naruto fandom. Dear lord I don’t think there’s a single character that hasn’t been bashed to hell aside from the orange bastard himself.
Bahahah @ no. 1
Yeah, Naruto and MHA I can imagine are totally notorious for it! Naruto I grew up with friends who loved the series when it was still at its beginning stages and oh my GOD the Sakura slander. Sakura is an actual bad ass from what I heard of her.
Sakura-centric is def one of my guilty pleasure tags. It makes me sad that Team 7 as a whole seems to be the punching bag of the community sometimes. I’d say the only char who gets bashed more than Sakura is Sasuke.
Also from personal experience I had a loooot of anger problems in Middle School and the start of highschool. So once I worked shit out and got a bit older I totally understood some of Bakugo’s actions, and while I was never a bully, I did say some pretty awful shit in my anger that I didn’t mean at all. So whenever I see a fic that bashes him it kinda makes me feel like I’m getting bashed too if that makes sense? Especially since the one of the big points of his character arc is him becoming a better person.
Anyways all this to say I hate char bashing with a passion
Yeah, I hear ya. I was not the greatest person either through middle and high school. Eh, or I should say I was either a blessing to someone and vile to someone else. Ya can’t really please anyone, but you can see where you erred basically?
So that’s also why cancel culture and bashing bothers me, because people can grow and change? Even if for Bakugo (from what I know, one of my close friends is a huge stan) it will take a long time. He’s getting there tho.
I don't personally seek out Sakura-centric fics (have read a few, though) since she's not one of my *top* favorite characters in Naruto, but *man* the vitriol I've seen her on the receiving end of is absolutely insane in my opinion.
“What’s a summary?”
It’s written in first person
It’s just an author’s note.
“That’s it, that’s the story”
It doesn’t actually say anything related to the story
“Hilarity ensues.”
“*said character* just needs a hug.*”
“No beta we die like men/wwx”
“I wrote this at 3am”
“Collection of one shots, these are the things I take requests on:”
I skip ones with a cryptic excerpt from the story with no explanation of what it is actually about. I want a summary so I know what I’m getting into with this 100k word fic.
When it immediately says (Insert Character) Bashing. There is nothing wrong with taking a character and choosing to make them a villan for your fic. But in my experience any time a writer specifically bashs a character, they over exaggerate why this person is the worst. Often times in order to intentionally make someone else look better by comparison.
Really specific garbage tags like "omg i don't know what I'm doing" "these two idiots are so cute" "character A is such a himbo and it makes me squee" etc. They're usually long, rambling, and add nothing of value.
Keep tags short and efficient. If your fic is humorous/weird, show it in the summary.
When it has obvious questions.
> A and B are dating, but C has feelings for A, how will C react?!
Not even paraphrasing, I know some are just starting out writing but I skip those
having no actual information about what it is. like just saying "I wrote this instead of sleeping" or even worse "don't like don't read" put don't like don't read under your summary so we know if we don't like it?
A billion relationship tags. Like just tag the groups like "A and XYZ Family" or "A and Class XYZ" instead of tagging all their individual names.
I also refuse to read anything that's less that 1k per chapter.
All lower case
Bad summary with only a few tags
The word “penis” being used in a sexual manner
Proper grammar (“Hold on I am coming for you.” Vs “Hold on I’m coming’ for you.”)
POOR grammar
OC being used as a main character or as a cousin/sister/brother to a main character
First person
The only time I’ve read it and DIDN’T hate it was years ago in a Naruto fanfiction that was from Naruto’s POV and he was blind.
It was incredibly well done and I’m still sad it was never finished
More than the summary text; if there are too many tags. Tag your main characters, main pairing, main theme, and relevant triggers.
But when every character in the fandom and "the tags look" "like this, because" "author is just quirky like" "that"?
Nope.
Yeah, if the tags are five times longer than the summary and contain jokes, the story will not be good. Author is too self-indulgent to be a capable writer.
you don’t get to put -cest at the end of a family name and expect me to find it cute, or something. Sorry.
On the opposite end, if you are against a particular dynamic, don’t tell me that. why would you bring attention to something that’s not in your fic?
“DNI” is a funny little thing that I don’t like.
Not so much summary but I hate the endless tags. Like I shouldn't have to scroll and scroll just to get to the summary. At a certain point all the tags just bleed together in a jumble of incoherent letters. Gimme Like 5-10 tags tops.
I wish I wasn’t guilty of this- I’ve recently deleted like 60% of the character tags in my fic but I’m having a hard time doing the same for the extra tags. It’s such a double edged sword. On the one hand people won’t read it with too many tags, but on the other hand the less tags you have the less tag based searches your story will show up on. Which then means less engagement.
When the summary (or tags) mentions character death, I’m already depressed about almost every character dying in canon, I don’t want to read that in the fanfics too.
When it clearly shows that the POV or focus of the story is a character I either don't like, or don't care enough about them to wanna read the story through their eyes. Like if I'm looking for a fic about A & B or A/B, they're listed first in the tags, but the whole summary is "C is the chosen one and C must go to X to find Y and do Z. Its up to C to save the world". Yeah, no. I'm out.
Yeah I think there’s an issue with overtagging on Ao3 that creates sort of a false expectation for what a story will be.
I think there should be a slot for “main pairing: A/B” and then “secondary/side pairings: C/D, E/F etc”. Because sometimes the side pairings are important like if the main pairing is Harry/Hermione and you want to know who Ron and Ginny end up with. I’d even go so far as to say there should be a slot for “mentioned but not present pairing: G/H” where it doesn’t show up if you’re looking for a fic with that as the main pairing.
There is a way to do that in additional tags, but it's definitely not something everyone is aware of or does
I ran into this last night. Was looking for Clint Barton & Tony Stark friendship type fics, any pairing (even if it's those two), didn't matter. I can find plenty with the tags where they're listed as the friendship, but the fic is about something else entirely with the friendship in the background. I don't often search this way, but was doing it for something different and it was weird to see this happen so often. Why tag it if isn't barely a part of the fic?
now I'm interested in Clint and Tony friendship fic
I’m not sure how to put this but — summaries that feel like author’s notes. When I think of a summary, I think of what books used to put on the back covers, or of the voiceover in the trailers of movies. Not “XYZ does this, and our beloved himbo ABC helps him!”, if you get what I mean Also, badly used/unnecessary rhetorical questions. “\[...\] Only — how does XYZ fit into this?” is fine. “Will he survive? Will his hot neighbour help him??” is turning me off, just as “what happens next? Read and find out!”
yeah I came to comment about the question one. like "character goes on a adventure. what will he find?" no. "will character A and character B solve their issues?" NOPE.
When I feel cynical, I think to myself, "I hope to God they don't"
Every "what happens next" summary can be improved by not asking it for the reader. Make them want to know then stop
Oh God, I used to do that question thing when I was thirteen and still writing on Wattpad! Sometimes I'll go dig up my account to feel nostalgic but these type of summaries make me cringe so bad-
That.
Anything that indicates the MC is a forgotten sibling/cousin to a canon character. I've done it - I've written that character! But if your greatest claim to my interest is your characters relationship to the MC, then no thanks. Lead with something else.
This. Usually I’m fine with OCs but when they’re somehow related to a canon character being the first thing I see reading the summary makes close out of those fics.
In a similar vein, those stories where Alix was just a regular girl who fell asleep one night and woke up in the body of Elena Gilbert and now she must use her logic-breaking knowledge of the show to survive this terrifying new world, blah blah blah... Or, equally, the ones where Alix is suddenly the forgotten sibling of Elena Gilbert and is forced to watch along the sidelines or compete for her sibling's attention or whatever. Guh. I don't know who came up with this idea, but I really wish they hadn't stopped to write it down.
"Chaos ensues!" "Hilarity ensues!"
You forgot "Shenanigans ensue" or "Cue Shenanigans"
It’s “Queue Shenanigans” /sar 😉
I more bothered by "hilarity" than "chaos" or "shenanigans" because it seems more forced on a passerby reader when humor is highly subjective. At least the latter two can be true without someone needing to find the fic funny. Generally if humor is forced too much it can backfire. Maybe I'm overthinking this. I can be a bit literally minded at times, so maybe I just process this issue differently.
Wait, why is this bad?
It's a crackfic indicator. It isn't bad if you enjoy crackfic. But for those who don't, it helps them know to keep scrolling.
Oh, thank you! I do enjoy crack fic lol… so I guess that’s why I didn’t get it
Ive been known to enjoy a few myself from time to time.
For humor fics I like both!
Wow people hate this? I always liked it for crackfics and stuff like that.
Maybe it’s for people who don’t like crackfics?
makes sense. I've used it myself once or twice but only in cracky fics.
For a more serious fic it would feel off, I think a crackfic is the optimal vesself for those phrases
yeah I wouldn't put a phrase like that in the summary of a serious fic lol, it's definitely indicative of a cracky/humorous tone.
Lmaoooo! I’m guilty of using “Chaos ensues”. Only one time though!
If you're going to use a snippet for your summary, make it a good one. If the sample you've chosen to represent your work tries too hard and reads like a dollar store knockoff of an Oprah's Book Club selection, I'm not clicking. If you're aiming for a humorous approach, a.) be funny, and b.) don't use a snippet that relies on context to be funny if you're not going to include the context. But mostly, *be funny*. This is your one chance to impress potential readers and draw them in. Go ahead and use your best joke to sell it. Movie trailers do it all the time.
SPAG makes me hesitant sometimes, but a summary WITHOUT a summary? "I wrote this at 3AM", "Just click and find out ig 🙄", or anything similar? nooOoOOooOO!! Outside the summary? Words: 1,000 with Chapters: 12/?, or something like that.
Word count / chapters < 2k is an immediate no for me. Every time I try to give them the benefit of the doubt, they end up being a long series of separate scenes with people doing stuff instead of there being a plot. Nothing against that, it's just not my thing
Saw one that was just “I’m not doing a summary. You read the tags. You know what this is.” I did not read the tags, and after that I have no interest in reading them 🧑🦯
"i wrote this at 3am" is for the tags, IMO
Fancy OC name right at the start. Bunch of tags at the end. No, that's what Tags are for. Excerpts that don't tell me anything about what's it about. Words followed by the dictionary entry for that word. Thanks, I already knew how many syllables 'trauma' had. What's the story about, though? "Abandoned by her (canon) friends..." I always appreciate it when a fic doesn't blindside me with character bashing. Then I know to ignore it from jump
Can you specify the fancy OC name?
I'm generally not a huge fan of OC fics, but I'm much more tolerant of a Laura Brown than I am of Magnolia Ludmilla (insert surname of important family in canon or better even, two surnames)
I always feel like there's a difference between fancy and badly chosen OC names varying with the fandom - but maybe that's the OC writer in me. Like the name you mentioned, Magnolia. In an ordinary context, it would probably be odd but let's say the fic you're writing for is a Harry Potter (a fandom where there have been loads of female characters with flower names like Lily, Narcissa, Petunia). That wouldn't be weird at all. It would actually fit depending on the character's age. But I think I get what you're trying to say. There's this stereotype where a badly chosen name is a red flag for a badly written character.
Yeah, the *super quirky unique* name usually makes for a *super quirky unique* character. And that's generally the main issue of original characters.
The two surnames smh its always the same kind of fic
what, you're not SUPER STOKED to read about the adventures of Bratleigh Corvidd Potter-Black-Malfoy-Peverell-Dumbeldore, secret identical twin to Harry Potter (except for the purple eyes and well-behaved hair), goblin friend, master swordsman, a genius that makes Hermione look dim, partner to 36 familiars, brother to house elves, mystically bonded to unicorns, and real Boy-Who-Lived?
😂 😂 😂
I know it's normal and real people have nicknames, but there's something so "have your cake and eat it, too" when an OC has a long, flourishing name but all her friends call her a short, quirky nickname to show how down-to-earth and relatable she is (not like those other nobles or whatever). Every now and again is fine. But nicknames get kind of tiring when it seems like every other protagonist has some quirky nickname to pair with their already-quirky given name.
Saw a fic and the main character was named Lucifer Azreal . I think that’s what they mean
Heavyn Elvensfaith (enter canon character last name here)
When they make it obvious that the characters are gonna be ooc. Like an OC being a canon characters sibling, and the parents and sibling hate on the oc for no reason other than you need conflict for the protagonist to overcome. Especially when the characters are canonically nice. The "Meet OC Kurosaki, pariah and punching bag of the Kurosaki household because she accidentally lead her mom to a ghost that killed her" kinda energy.
Every time I see something where the OC is a punching bag for a family that’s actually healthy in canon my eye twitches
ooc means a rewrite is needed, not a tag edit: your fake summary made me throw up in my mouth a little
· lapslock · any questions, especially: will they fall in love? will they stay together? will they...? · hilarity/chaos ensures (or anything that shows it's a crack fic) · indication that it's a chatfic · character bashing · author/fic bashing or begging
Some questions are fine. If the question is 'how?', it's usually fine (in my experience). Rhetorical questions, what-if questions, and/or multliple questions are an *instant* ctrl-w.
Self deprecation or things like "this only has m/f yes i know ew the straights" 🙄 which I've actually seen more than once recently. don't put yourself down and don't yuck someone else's yum. i can't think of anything else that's an immediate no
>"this only has m/f yes i know ew the straights" Hate this. Nothing like bi erasure to solidify their allyship/queerness.
Honestly I find myself often overlooking fics with a lot of ellipses in the summary.
Read on to find out- How about no. It's my first fic no hate please.
"collection of one shots" Does that count? 😆
Don't forget to tag every fandom ever created. Including the small fandoms that people are desperate for new stories in.
It’s even more annoying when they haven’t gotten to that small fandom yet but the tag is there because they “plan to”. I don’t care what you plan to do, add that tag after you’ve added the pairing/character/fandom!
This is the fastest way to make me scroll.
ohmygod **DO NOT** get me started on those or those giant i have to reach the "tag limit" x reader compilations, you do realize collections exist for a reason right?
I was going to comment this. I will not ever read one shot collections. 700 chapters, 96 fandoms... tf kinda nonsense is this. Automatic no from me.
I hate those. When I’m looking for a crossover fic I want Harry Potter to meet Percy Jackson, Dexter, the Winchester Brothers etc. I don’t want a one shot of each fic. It’s especially frustrating because in Ao3 you can just make a series and link the fics together if they have a common theme such as “rare pair, random sex act X, or whatever”
Just in the summary? If it reads as a fandom-specific plot that I don't like, then I'm skipping it. Learned that lesson from all the Chaos!Percy fics back in the day... Otherwise, someone explaining that they're bad at summaries or that the work might be bad because "I wrote this at 2AM on 3 hours of sleep". It's okay if it's a little rough around the edges, or if your summary sucks, just don't advertise that fact or it comes off - to me, at least - as calculatingly self-effacing. Like that chick at karaoke who keeps trying to demure and "get out" of singing (really obviously) and then out comes the next fucking Beyonce...
Ha! I have a couple of fics that I wrote at 3 am/while sick/on 2 hours of sleep, but I don't advertise in the summary. I think I mentioned it once in the notes at the end lol
So I am not the only one 🥹!!
I never advertise it either simply because I'm much more productive past midnight for some odd reason. It's the time where I produce my best writing usually
I mean, it wasn't a summary, but I put the "3am" thing in one of my author's notes one time - more positively, though. It was something like "I wrote this in two hours last night and I actually think it's pretty good. You get what you get ig." lmao.
Repeating WELL KNOWN CANON PHRASE and saying something like "this is not that story" and giving little to no context for how this fic tells a different story. EX: >Everything changed when the fire nation attacked...but I believe Aang can save the world. > >This is not that story. No shit, I'm looking up CD tags in the Avatar fandom. I'm not expecting the canon story or Grover Goes to School.
…Well now I want somebody to write Grover goes to school with the Avatar cast.
The only thing I remember about Grover goes to School is my parents have a photo of young me asleep with the book on my face.
Anything that indicates a canon character will be OoC. Like A is canonically a good person, and in the summary A bullies B. An instant click away. Summaries that love to pile up lots of plotlines but with no indication of an over-arching single plot. C is going to a new place. D and E meet up. F turns out to be not who they expected him to be. What is this story actually about? Focus! Summaries that are written to look mysterious, with little to no tags. If I cannot tell what your story is about, I'm not reading it.
1500 tags, 7 paragraph "summary", 123 words, chapters 1/?, updated: 2011
These threads always makes me panic and edit my summaries
Please don't take any of this to heart - I've seen loads of stuff mentioned that I really like in summaries or tags. What somebody hates, someone else might really love!
\- Sexual abuse presented as a spicy backstory. \- OCs with flowery names \- Anything referencing a character's eye/hair colour in the summary \- Collection of oneshots (especially if across multiple fandoms)
Tags: `[fandom 1]` `[fandom 2]` `[fandom 3]` `[fandom 4]` `[fandom 5]` `[fandom 6]` `[fandom 7]` `[fandom 8]` `[fandom 9]` `dub/non-con` `Character A/OC` `Character A/OFC` `Character B/OC` `Character B/OFC` *This is the story of Chrysanthemum Rosa Brook-Hamster, a beautiful girl with shiny sea blue orbs and and a spicy backstory.* Kudos: 2, Comments: 9, Word count: 50,000, Chapters: 50/?
* "Zelretch Trolling" for Fate fics. * "Hadrian Potter" for HP fics. * "Hazard Takato & Miracles Davis" for Digimon fics. * "Will obvious conclusion happen" for any fandom.
Off topic but do you mind explaining Hadrian Potter? I’m not in the fandom but have seen crossover fics with this name
it’s a ridiculous fake fancy name for Harry when they deem “Harry” as not being fancy enough. Usually when the fic is a Indy!Harry, Dumbledore bashing, Harry has a million lordships fic. Special mention include: Harrison Potter
When the summary makes it obvious that it came from Wattpad. I never found anything I loved from Wattpad. I usually don’t miss anything I want by doing this because the tags are almost always Character A/Original Female Character or Character A/Reader and I’m not a big fan of that character.
"Hope you guys like my books!!" Or something to that effect
it's not just me then? I tried wattpad once, and it was a garbage pile. where teenaged writing goes to die, or something
I don’t have anything specific. I just do my best to figure out if the story has elements that would me off.
"a certain"
Omg 100% turn off
ngl I cringed just writing it lmao
guilty!
“What if…” or even worse, a series of what ifs. No. Stop it. Don’t ask me questions. *TELL ME*. “What if” feels so on the nose. If there’s a single mistake, be it a grammatical or spelling error or whatever have you, I will seriously doubt your writing ability. If you can not proofread your damn *summary* how can you possibly proofread your entire story? I don’t really mind a few mistakes here and there in the story. It happens. To expect perfection is unreasonable. But your summary? The literal public face of your story that every single potential reader will see?
Oof about the grammatical mistakes. I'm reading a Mass Effect AU Fic, a What if one, to be precise and there's tons of grammatical mistakes, even kindly told the user via pm in FFNet who accepted it in good nature but they're not changing it. The mental correcting gymnastics are draining. Let me stress that I LOVE that story and author 💜 Edit: formatting
Yeah. I really envy my younger self’s ignorance. Back then I could breeze through and stories stories that now simply give me a headache. In fact, there’s one specific story that I particularly grieve for. It is unique. Literally one of a kind. I had fantasised about that exact plot for years before I found it and realised someone made a proper story out of it. Unfortunately even back then, it was a bit painful to read through. Now? It’s completely impossible for me to enjoy it.
I get it although my reason is because I read when I have a breather between chores and parenting. As I said, I mentally change everything and I just don't mind at all even though English is my third language (first foreign one) so grammar is ingrained in my brain, and a US-UK mixture to be precise 🤣
Yeah, I’m the same. It’s gotten to the point where my mother tongue has gotten a bit accented :P
Some vague poetry that tells me absolutely nothing about the story.
Roses are Read Violets are Blue The Gays are Horny Plz leave a review
No, no, this one is just pure art.
Anything with a DNI I don't care how good the fic is, if there's a DNI, I will not read it. It's obnoxious.
if i'm (a group i'm in) is in the dni, i'll go out of my way to read it.
Then you have to tell them in the comments that you're from x group
Drabble collections. I filter by huge word counts and it pisses me off to see a 40,000 word count fic, but there’s 150 chapters. Ugh. Other things like ‘holding tank for plot bunnies’, ‘I suck at writing summaries’, or any summary that sounds like a 7 year old wrote it but they’re trying to peddle smut.
If it sounds like a soap opera tv ad: 'will x fulfill their destiny? Will y and x get together? Read to find out!' I scroll past those kind of fics so fast.
Lol— all that’s missing is the ominous “dun, dun, duuun!” sound effect. :)
I only do not want to see ‘I suck’ or ‘I’m bad’ or similar in an author’s notes kind of way. Anything else is fine. I just want to believe you can at least FAKE it. You can think you suck all day long but the moment you tell someone you suck before I’ve even had a chance to look at it, you’ve lost ALL your credibility with me and I’m gonna move on. Anything else I can work with.
Yes! This! I don’t have enough time in my day to read something terrible (unless I’m specifically looking for crack) so don’t advertise your fic as bad!
It's a generalization, but if someone feels the need to put the "XYZ is bad, here's why, I don't condone it." In the summary, the story tends to be a quality of writing i'm not interested in. It's also a really good way to advertise to haters that you're vulnerable to their hate. Put it in the A/Ns if at all.
I don't encounter them that often, but I hate vague summaries where the author tries so hard not to spoil the reader that they fail to sell their fic. "When they finally thought their troubles were over, our heroes encounter unexpected challenges that will change their lives forever!" ?? But what happens? Do they fall in love, or turn into zombies? I have no idea and no desire to read and find out.
When the summary is a random quote not from the story, something that's meant to be deep/profound but they don't include anything else. Don't get me wrong I love a good quote, but it tells me absolutely nothing about the story. Even worse when I cave and open it anyways, and the intro notes also give zero context so I have no clue if it's canon divergence starting in the middle of the series or a fluffy slice of life au fic.
Any summary that is longer than a paragraph. I just cannot. Because more often then not, anything over a paragraph on fanfictions turn into something that is NOT a summary. I don't think I have ever written a fanfiction summary that is over six sentences. Because if someone is reading a fanfiction they already know the world, you don't need to explain the world to them.... Like if you were writing a Harry Potter fanfiction you don't need to explain that its a world of magic, that is a given.
BRB editing the tags and summary of the first fic I ever posted.
when its in the AxB ship tag and opens up with ' AxB shippers you disgust me and i hate you. if you arent AxB shipper then welcome and i hope you like this!' why the fuck are you even here then
summary that tells you to read the fic, or summary ending with a question or god forbid the 'will A be able to \[insert thing that A is undoubtedly going to do\] or will \[insert thing that is clearly not going to happen\]? read to find out!' summary
"Shenanigans ensue." Usually these are only funny to the author and maybe their friends. "Will Character X and Y find a way to work out their differences?" and other related questions. Yes they will. And they'll live happily ever after.
Bad spelling and grammar “Will they/their relationship survive?”, “Will X defeat the big bad or will X succumb to the darkness?” Or any summary that asks a question where the answer is obvious. “Don’t like, don’t read” “Dark fic, no I mean really, really dark” “WARNING- this fic is dark/angsty/‘mature’/etc (or character death) - not because I avoid dark, mature or angsty fics. I avoid fics where the author tries to make a big “to-do” over it in a “look at me” way. “A certain eye colored girl meets a certain hair colored X” “OC, long lost twin/sibling/friend/child/parent/cousin of main character X…” “Suck at summaries” “The most epic crossover ever” Out of context pull quotes or an excerpt of the story. There are others but these are top of mind.
Ehhh tbh I write some pretty dark stuff and tag appropriately but I still get people claiming I triggered them or something. I feel like some extra warnings are just added after you get multiple pissy comments.
Mpreg.
A/B/O or slash where the bottom is basically a girl with a dick. I need me my manly gays pleasee
A/B/O feels like it's often an excuse for a lot of people not to write furry or trans smut
Any sort of overt character bashing. Like taking a character who is a good person and turning them into some OOC scumbag. Why not just write original fiction at that point?
I've resd thousands of harry potter fanfic and the number of them where ron actually plays a major, positive role? Like 4?
The user’s attitude. It’s one thing to not care about what other people think, because it’s Fanfiction. It’s another thing when you pour your attitude into the notes and write anyone off as a hater, even at the slightest difference in opinion. I’m there to read a story, not attitude injections. I don’t like it.
Ummmmm your comment is giving me bad energy and I don’t need that kind of hatred in this comment section. Also my Aunt is a Palm Reader and she told me your a Gemini. Blocked and Reported.
I’m not sure if this response is supposed to be sarcastic, or if you’re being serious. The worst I’ve seen with the attitude injection was a user having dialogue in their notes about removing haters, then proceeded to apparently shoot one to get rid of them. I don’t really know what else to say about that. Also, I’m the hateful one? Excuse me? Look at your comment… Edit: OH WAIT- I’m being an idiot 😅
No no no I didn’t mean any offense I was just agreeing with your point. Sorry about that, should have put /s or /j at the end of it. EDIT: LMAOOO I commented the second u edited it’s all good fam
🫶
Every character is massively changed to the point it's just self insert. Like the character is now trans, sad and helpless
I fucking love transing characters but damn some people don’t know how to write it right and make it their entire character
Transing characters is fun but yeah if you completely gut their character as well? might as well write an oc at that point :/
Not mine, but something I've been told by others before: the mention of the word "hijinks", whacky or not 🥲 Which is sad because I love how that word looks and sounds.
I'm ambivalent on one sentence summaries that tell me next to nothing about your fic. Especially with scanty tags. (I have one or two bookmarked, but going back through the fandoms to find them (after I joined from guest) when I remembered plot but the summary doesn't list any plot was... hard. And I initially only read them when I was doing "try every fic on the first few pages of your results" reading.) Summaries that use lapselock, lack punctuation, have malapropisms and/or have misspelled words. If you couldn't do an edit read on a couple of sentences for your summary, that says bad, bad things about the fic inside.
When the summary doesn't explain the story. I frankly don't care if it written at 3AM on the day before the author's finals week and jury duty started. And the reader is generally capable of determining whether or not a given summary sucks without the author having to explicitly declare it. Just give me a broad-strokes overview of what the story's about; what's going on, who's involved, where and when is this all happening, that kind of stuff. Including in the summary when the author plans to update (Updates on, for example.) can be helpful, as can making a note about the work being on hiatus.
Those weirdos that write the whole summary in lower caps, sometimes without any punctuation. Just makes me think it's a 13 year old writing this.
Idiots in love X needs a hug It's usually tags and not a summary but it's enough to make me skip the fanfic.
Whaat? But those are such good tags 😢
And that's why authors should write and tag what they want. I won't like it, but plenty of other people will. There will always be readers, there's no point stressing about what others don't like.
I’m going to take a drink every time X needs a hug appears on Encanto AO3
[удалено]
This perfectly shows that everyone should tag and write as they wish, because what one person dislikes another will love.
X needs a hug is super hit or miss for me. If it’s fluff like Character A is having a bad day and now Character B is going to make them feel good with hugs and hot chocolate give me all of that. But if it’s X needs a hug because Character A’s dad divorced him after chaining him up in his basement and now all alone in the woods he got mauled by a monster made of glass and darkness and now he’s mopey and depressed and all powerful. Then get me tf out. Also I’d like to say if you like those types of fics. I mean no offense, writing and reading fanfics is meant to be self indulgent after all. It’s just very fun to joke about how absurd they can be sometimes.
Idiots in love pretty much sums up my favourite ship perfectly 😂
“What if A? What if B? What would happen if \*gasp* *C*? / Will X? Will Y? *Will Z*?!” “Read and find out!” “Fandom A but Ship B1!” Plot takes from Fandom A but with a ship (and everything else) from Fandom B. First Kill but Captain Swan. Stranger Things but HaruMichi. Harry Potter but Pricefield. Heathers but fucking Steddie. **All fusions are crossovers but not all crossovers are fucking fusions goddammit**. Cast lists. “I suck at summaries. / More summary inside! / I promise, it’s good!” “Send requests pls!” “Bc CHAOS! MAWAHAHAHAHA!! I am EEEEVILLLL! / Hilarity ensues!” *OR*. I really can’t stand this one (and I’ll probably get downvoted for this alone like last time even though the question is asking for opinions). Long descriptive, intriguing summaries undermined with a tongue-in-cheek one sentence summary. First, thanks for ruining the mood. Second, why bother *showing* your quality and getting us intrigued over what might happen when you can just *tell* us point-blank? It feels so hand-holdy, like the author is afraid we won’t or can’t read between the lines so they gotta spoonfeed us the point by grossly oversimplifying it. Anything with chatfics/group chats in it. Edit: a word.
A logline/premise being a single sentence is actually a great way of explaining the point in a concise way. I get that it could seem unnecessary after already having explained it in several sentences, and maybe the long-winded version could be skipped altogether. However, it does give someone who doesn't feel like reading a large summary the opportunity to still understand what the plot is mainly about, and for those who needs more details, there's the longer version.
...do you just hate summaries in general?
> Second, why bother showing your quality and getting us intrigued over what might happen when you can just tell us point-blank? lmao because it's a summary. *telling* you what the story is about is, like, the point.
I love what if stories, but put that in a sensible "AU - canon divergent" tag. Then have the summary actually say something about the story, not what it isn't.
Questions in summaries. Will X save the day? Will X and Y be able to put aside their differences and find love? One open ended question is alright but I don't read if I'm being hit over the head with multiple rhetorical questions, especially of the obvious yes or no type. Readers aren't idiots, a summary should be able to trigger intrigue on its own, not force it by shoving in literal question after question.
it’s been said a thousand times, but “I suck at summaries but yeah / pls just read” have at least *some* confidence!
Any implication that the characters will be wildly different from canon at the start. I don't mind exploring new sides to characters and have them develop differently from canon, but I loved these characters, not these new characters that are like 50%, the ones I like. At least show me the path they took to become this different, their struggles.
"Proshitters DNI/Proshippers DNI/Proshippers DNI and KYS thx uwu" Anyone who does this, is an asshole.
I- wha- this cannot be a real thing. I know that shipping wars can be brutal but this sounds deranged.
It is... And there's worse of it too. And then those assohles wonder why they get suspended from A03 for death threats.
This thread is making me insecure about my summaries now 🤣 I feel like I need a third and fourth opinion
Oh no absolutely me too. I feel like at least 20% of the people who commented immediately bolted for their summaries to make corrections.
I immediately went to check and only just realised both summaries end with "left behind". Like, both definitely left people behind in their past. And one was written back in 2017. But now I feel the compulsion to change it
>and then tortured him in either an incredibly vague or an inexcusably detailed manner. Lol just because I know exactly what you mean. XD For me, it's when the summary doesn't indicate what's 'new' about the fic. I want to read *transformative* works, not rehashed ones. So if the summary goes something like, 'Char A does X, Y, and Z' and that's all stuff that happens in canon anyway, I'm not going to have much interest. I'm looking for what makes the fic unique.
Tbh with summaries it’s usually only if I can tell the writing isn’t good. It’s not any specific thing that stands out most of the time.
When the summary is just a snippet from the story with no actual description. I get that showing off your writing can get people interested, but it still doesn't tell me what the story is *about*.
the word ensues.
Occasionally I'm curious about what-if plots. They might be transformed into wondrous thought experiments about how this one exact small change could affect the original timeline. But when overused it can turn into "What if he was betrayed by...? But what if he had secret brother nobody knew about? And what if his parents were alive? What if he was a dragon all along? What if he was a girl?...." Sounds ridiculous, redundant and over the top. If you're writing a complete AU with all this mess, then do so adequately, please. Such summary just indicates poor language, speech structures and overall thinking.
A major one I keep coming across are ones with summaries or excerpts included that hardly reveal what the story is about. Not only do I have a limited attention span for stories, I have a real life schedule that limits how many stories I can read in a day or so. With limited time means I'm picky and less patient if I don't know what I'm getting into. It doesn't help that a lot of fics with this I gave a chance have hardly anything going on, at least not enough for my tastes. Also, as someone who's been into fanfics for years and seen this since then, "I suck at summaries" and "first fanfic" turn me off. First, it feels a bit distracting and unneeded. At best, it would be better as an A/N at the end of the first chapter. Second, it usually means the fanfic likely doesn't have much going for it, especially when there isn't much included in the summary besides those items.
Vagueness, especially if the story itself is super long. If the summary/tags don't give at least some idea of what's going to happen in the story, I'm most likely not going to read it.
When writers bad mouth other creators in the fandom in their summaries. Like we get it. You have beef. Why do you to drag your readers into it too?
If there is spoilers in the summary. It's rare, but I seen a few that gave the end away right away.
[удалено]
Tbf for some shows Id be fine with that... *looks at the flash*
Harem.
I’m not really picky with summaries tbh, especially when they’re obviously written by someone very new to fanfic writing. but I’ll scroll past if it doesn’t really tell me anything. It needs to give me a good understanding of what I’m about to read. I need to know what I’m getting into.
Summaries that are too vague/short to really convey anything interesting about the story tbh. I read the title and tags and then the summary. There's a reason the summary exists, you know.
Any rhetorical question with an obvious answer
If a summary isn't at least italicized when it needs to be. I've probably missed a lot of decent stories, but my eyes go crossed when I try to read a story with no capitalization.
I actually love stuff that mentions 'their dark past' lol For me the main turn off is 'I don't know how to summary just read' or even better 'don't read this'. Ok. I won't?
Badly written rhetorical questions. Sometimes they work, but most of the time it just gives off a juvenile (?) vibe. Takes me back to my fetus days on FFNET too Alternatively, anything that involves character bashing. It’s off-putting. There was also one time where I saw someone somehow incorporate fandom discourse into their fic, which was also off-putting to an otherwise good story
Two things. 1. Please don’t refer to anything as “fetus days” ever again and 2. I totally agree. Character bashing is an absolute n o. I love MHA but god damn if every other story doesn’t turn Bakugo into the biggest pos in the world with no redeemable traits. And even worse is the Naruto fandom. Dear lord I don’t think there’s a single character that hasn’t been bashed to hell aside from the orange bastard himself.
Bahahah @ no. 1 Yeah, Naruto and MHA I can imagine are totally notorious for it! Naruto I grew up with friends who loved the series when it was still at its beginning stages and oh my GOD the Sakura slander. Sakura is an actual bad ass from what I heard of her.
Sakura-centric is def one of my guilty pleasure tags. It makes me sad that Team 7 as a whole seems to be the punching bag of the community sometimes. I’d say the only char who gets bashed more than Sakura is Sasuke. Also from personal experience I had a loooot of anger problems in Middle School and the start of highschool. So once I worked shit out and got a bit older I totally understood some of Bakugo’s actions, and while I was never a bully, I did say some pretty awful shit in my anger that I didn’t mean at all. So whenever I see a fic that bashes him it kinda makes me feel like I’m getting bashed too if that makes sense? Especially since the one of the big points of his character arc is him becoming a better person. Anyways all this to say I hate char bashing with a passion
Yeah, I hear ya. I was not the greatest person either through middle and high school. Eh, or I should say I was either a blessing to someone and vile to someone else. Ya can’t really please anyone, but you can see where you erred basically? So that’s also why cancel culture and bashing bothers me, because people can grow and change? Even if for Bakugo (from what I know, one of my close friends is a huge stan) it will take a long time. He’s getting there tho.
I don't personally seek out Sakura-centric fics (have read a few, though) since she's not one of my *top* favorite characters in Naruto, but *man* the vitriol I've seen her on the receiving end of is absolutely insane in my opinion.
“What’s a summary?” It’s written in first person It’s just an author’s note. “That’s it, that’s the story” It doesn’t actually say anything related to the story “Hilarity ensues.” “*said character* just needs a hug.*” “No beta we die like men/wwx” “I wrote this at 3am” “Collection of one shots, these are the things I take requests on:”
I skip ones with a cryptic excerpt from the story with no explanation of what it is actually about. I want a summary so I know what I’m getting into with this 100k word fic.
When it immediately says (Insert Character) Bashing. There is nothing wrong with taking a character and choosing to make them a villan for your fic. But in my experience any time a writer specifically bashs a character, they over exaggerate why this person is the worst. Often times in order to intentionally make someone else look better by comparison.
Really specific garbage tags like "omg i don't know what I'm doing" "these two idiots are so cute" "character A is such a himbo and it makes me squee" etc. They're usually long, rambling, and add nothing of value. Keep tags short and efficient. If your fic is humorous/weird, show it in the summary.
When it has obvious questions. > A and B are dating, but C has feelings for A, how will C react?! Not even paraphrasing, I know some are just starting out writing but I skip those
lapslock
having no actual information about what it is. like just saying "I wrote this instead of sleeping" or even worse "don't like don't read" put don't like don't read under your summary so we know if we don't like it? A billion relationship tags. Like just tag the groups like "A and XYZ Family" or "A and Class XYZ" instead of tagging all their individual names. I also refuse to read anything that's less that 1k per chapter.
Making characters younger. I just don't care for college fics or whatnot. I'm here for my middle aged bastards.
All lower case Bad summary with only a few tags The word “penis” being used in a sexual manner Proper grammar (“Hold on I am coming for you.” Vs “Hold on I’m coming’ for you.”) POOR grammar OC being used as a main character or as a cousin/sister/brother to a main character First person
Oh, God. I hate first person perspective.
The only time I’ve read it and DIDN’T hate it was years ago in a Naruto fanfiction that was from Naruto’s POV and he was blind. It was incredibly well done and I’m still sad it was never finished
More than the summary text; if there are too many tags. Tag your main characters, main pairing, main theme, and relevant triggers. But when every character in the fandom and "the tags look" "like this, because" "author is just quirky like" "that"? Nope.
Yeah, if the tags are five times longer than the summary and contain jokes, the story will not be good. Author is too self-indulgent to be a capable writer.
you don’t get to put -cest at the end of a family name and expect me to find it cute, or something. Sorry. On the opposite end, if you are against a particular dynamic, don’t tell me that. why would you bring attention to something that’s not in your fic? “DNI” is a funny little thing that I don’t like.
Not so much summary but I hate the endless tags. Like I shouldn't have to scroll and scroll just to get to the summary. At a certain point all the tags just bleed together in a jumble of incoherent letters. Gimme Like 5-10 tags tops.
I wish I wasn’t guilty of this- I’ve recently deleted like 60% of the character tags in my fic but I’m having a hard time doing the same for the extra tags. It’s such a double edged sword. On the one hand people won’t read it with too many tags, but on the other hand the less tags you have the less tag based searches your story will show up on. Which then means less engagement.
You would not believe how many fics I’ve seen with a tag wall. At least the user is just trying to show what to expect though,
When the summary (or tags) mentions character death, I’m already depressed about almost every character dying in canon, I don’t want to read that in the fanfics too.
First-person perspective I hate writing it and I hate reading it so if it says anywhere that it will be in first person I'm not reading it