What’s Blurb Got To Do With It?

As you come toward the end of completing your first novel, it’s tempting to believe that the hard yards are already complete, that you are coasting into the station, mission accomplished. The last few weeks have taught me that such notions can best be categorised as the wishful thinking of an unschooled innocent. Instead the narrow focus of simply ‘finishing the damn thing’ is superseded by a raging torrent of wider concerns relating to formatting, publishing and marketing.

One such consideration that might be naively viewed as somewhat facile is the need to produce a blurb. How hard could writing a few hundred words be after the Herculean task of delivering hundreds of thousands? Well, much to my chagrin, I’ve come to the deeply discomfiting conclusion that, for myself at any rate, it might well be more challenging than producing the novel itself.

Perhaps that should not be altogether too surprising. For as long as I can recall, written words have come easily to me. Brevity… not so much. On my journey thus far, the deadly foe of every wordsmith, writer’s block, has remained an unfounded concern; some unknown Jack Torrance’s problem. Indeed, in my experience, writer’s vomit is a more fitting malady. When I write, and I’m in the zone, words flow, and flow… and flow and before I know it I’m donning a life jacket and clinging to the flotsam of my desk. Cycles of redrafts are inevitable, wherein the flabby prose is trimmed and tucked.

That brings me to the challenge presented by distilling a mighty heavyweight tome down to a mere featherweight of words. I found myself pondering what are the desirable qualities of a good blurb. In turn that led me to define for myself what the purpose of the blurb should be. The definition I arrived at was this: A blurb must strive to provide just enough flavour to the prospective reader that they might decide with reasonable haste if the novel warrants deeper consideration. Furthermore it must do so in a convincing manner whilst simultanously being vague enough that it refrains from divulging too many juicy plot details. In short it must walk the narrow tightrope between eager open marketing and deliberate diffident obfuscation.

Did I achieve that with my blurb? I’m honestly not sure. In a mini reenactment of the novel writing process I wrote too much, consequently shared too much of the plot and then spent several iterations paring back the content. It was undoubtedly a valuable exercise in summarising a large body of text that I’ve become all too familiar with. Did it make me more effective at writing in a concise manner? Unfortunately I expect not. Did it make me more aware of the need to effectively communicate the vital essence of my work? Absolutely.