Abigale Perry
Bonus Cheat Sheet: Crime Story Blurb PDF Cheat Sheet:
Here’s What to Expect:
Why do People Read Crime?
What is a Back Cover?
What is a Hook?
How to Write a Logline?
How to Write a Back Cover?
Crime Back Cover Case Studies
Key Point and PDF Download
Q&A
In tis workshop, I’m going to teach you 3 essential elements in an engaging blurb and how to make your crime back cover stand out
Why Do People Read Crime Stories?
People Love Crime Stories Because …
- Exciting and Interesting with Intense, high Physical Stakes
- Feel a Sense of Anticipation over whether a Criminal will be
Brought to Justice
- Follow a Trail of Clues, Make Meaning of those Clues, and Put
Together a Puzzle Alongside the Protagonist
- Satisfying Endings that Often Show How Wrongs are Righted
- Emotional and Entertaining Endings
Crime Story: Four Core Framework
- Core Need
- Core Value
- Core Emotion
- Core Event
Core Need: Safety
- Arises When the Inciting Crime Happens
- This Threatens Security and Coherence in Society
- Protagonist Must Find the Wrongdoers and Bring Them to Justice in
Order to Return Order to a Chaotic and Dangerous World
- Involves High Physical Stakes
Core Value: Justice and Injustice
Protagonist acts on Behalf of a Larger Society or Group to Pursue
Justice for Victims
Core Emotion: Intrigue
- Reader Feels the Desire to Solve the Puzzle or See How It’s Solved
- After Exposure, Reader Feels Satisfied
- If the Criminal is not Exposed, the Reader Feels Cheated (Criminals
can Go Unpunished in a ‘Cautionary Crime’ Story)
Core Event: Exposure of the Criminal
- Climax in the Story
- Often, the protagonist chooses between their own Safety and Victim
of the Injustice
- May Result in an Internal Loss of the Sense of Right and Wrong
- Restores a Reader’s Sense of Security
All of This can Impact and/or Suggest what Needs to Happen in Your Crime
Blurb
Why Write a Blurb Before A Manuscript?
Blurb Definition:
- A Blurb is a Sales Copy that often Appears in the Back Cover of a
Book, and that Writers Use to Pitch Their Manuscript in a Query
Letter
- It is a Short, Persuasive Description of a Story’s Key Selling Points
A Blurb Can:
- Identify of an Idea Has Legs that Can Withstand the Length of a
Novel
- Provide Some Direction with a Basic Plan (for Pantsers) or Kickstart
a Plan (For Both Pantsers and Plotters)
- Act as a North Star that Keeps You On-Track, or Helps You Re-
evaluate When Your Plot Needs to Change
- Pitch an Idea to an Agent, Editor, or Publisher (Live or in a Query
Letter)
- Hook a Reader and Get Them to Want to Read More (Grab Them
with an Interesting Protagonist, Potential Arc of Change, and High Stakes)
A Blurb/Back Cover Is NOT …
- Dozens of Pages that Map Out Every Detail in a Story’
- A Synopsis
- A Chapter-by-Chapter Outline
- An Explanation of the Story’s Theme
- Description Weighted Down by Backstory and Worldbuilding
- Something Writers Should Avoid Writing
Short: 250 Words Target – Hint of Big Events – No Explaining - No Telling
Back Cover Blurb for ‘One by One’ by Ruth Ware:
Getting snowed in at a luxurious, rustic ski chalet high in the French Alps doesn’t sound like the worst problem in the world. Especially when there’s a breath-taking vista, a full-service chef and housekeeper, a cozy fire to keep you warm, and others to keep you company. Unless that company happens to be eight co-workers … each with something to gain, something to lose, and something to hide.
When the co-founder of Snoop, a trendy, London-based tech start-up, organizes a week-long trip for the team in the French Alps, it starts out as a corporate retreat like any other: presentations and strategy sessions broken up by mandatory bonding on the slopes. But as soon as one shareholder upends the agenda by pushing a lucrative but contentious buy-out offer, tensions simmer and loyalties are tested. The storm brewing inside the chalet is no match for the one outside, however, and a devasting avalanche leaves the group cut off from access to the outside world. Even worse, one Snooper hadn’t made it back from the slopes when the avalanche hit.
As each hour passes without any sign of rescue, panic mounts, the chalet grows colder, and the group dwindles further … one by one.
Crime Formula
Typically, a crime/mystery story follows a basic formula of a body/crime and a mystery that must be solved by the end
What Makes a Great Story (and Blurb) Depends on the Story’s Hook
Blurb Key Points
- A Blurb is a short, persuasive description of a story’s key selling
points. For crime stories, this description will suggest genre expectations – but not give away the whole story
- The goal of a blurb is to get readers (including agents and editors)
to ask to read more
What is a Hook?
Bookends Literary Agency Defines as Having Three Major Components
- Bigger than a Tagline/Logline
- All-Encompassing Component
- Makes a Book Stand Out
Jessica Faust and James McGowen suggest these make a pitch-worthy hook
Bigger than a Logline
- A Logline/Tagline is Made to Grab Your Attention in One Sentence
- It is a One-Sentence Pitch of Your Story’s Big-Picture (or Main) Idea
- While Gripping, … a Hook is Bigger than One Sentence
Still … Should You Write a Logline?
YES
- Technically, you don’t need to write a logline to write a great blurb,
but writing one first can help you grasp the big ideas of your story
- You can then Expand Your Logline into Description that Crafts a Blurb
Logline: Four Main Components
- Ironic
- Compelling Mental Image
- Target Audience
- Killer Title
Ironic: Often, why the protagonist is the least likely person to be the
protagonist
The Genre suggests the atmosphere/tone the logline must have
Example: ‘One by One’ by Ruth Ware
A corporate staff attend a work-retreat at a ski-chalet that goes horribly awry when an avalanche and a buy-out offer test tensions and loyalties, resulting in members of the group being killed off “one by one.”
All-Encompassing
Through Your Blurb, Your Book Comes Through
_ Jessica Faust, Bookends Literary Agency
When You Read a Blurb, the ‘hook’ isn’t limited to one event or character; it encapsulates the ‘unique’ element that frames your story
In other words, your ‘hook” is …
What Makes the Book Stand Out
It is what is unique
It is not just
- the Premise
- the Genre
- the Plot
It is:
- The concept that makes it unique, especially in comparison to other
books of the same genre
- Something that describes the whole story
Once a book becomes a big influence, other stories might reciprocate a hook in different ways (Big Little Lies)
- What makes the story “same,” but “different”
Example: “One by One” by Ruth Ware: this story’s ‘hook’ could be
- same: a work retreat at a rustic ski chalet in the French Alps
- different: an avalanche that traps the characters - claustrophobic
An alternate method to ‘imagine’ a hook
Imagine you go to a bookstore and get a “blind date with a book”
- wrapped in a paper bag
- what are the words on that bag: the “it” factor?
That’s Your Hook
Example: “Spirit” – a movie by Dreamworks
Logline: A wild stallion is captured by humans and slowly loses the will to resist training, yet, throughout his struggles for freedom, the stallion refuses to let go of the hope of one day returning home to his herd
Hook: The story of the West has been told from the back of a horse, but nor by the ‘spirit’ of one (Spirit is the horse’s name)
How this is told determines why the audience loves this story
The hook makes it a unique Western/status story
The back cover – blurb – needs to combine all this – without giving away the whole story
What distinguished your crime/mystery book from all the others on the shelf?
Blurb Definition (enlarged):
- A Blurb is a Sales Copy that often Appears in the Back Cover of a
Book, and that Writers Use to Pitch Their Manuscript in a Query
Letter
- It is a Short, Persuasive Description of a Story’s Key Selling Points
- The Hook of Your Book is an All-Encompassing Component of a Story
That Defends Why It is Different than Other Books in the Same Genre
How to Write a Hook-Worthy Blurb
Go from Logline to Back Cover
Using to Hook as a continuum throughout this process, holding it together
Blurb = Back Cover
Blurb
Goal: Write a Blurb that excites the reader enough to read more
- Summarize the sales copy of your book in 1-3 short paragraphs
- Focus on plot + excitement factors
- Get Specific (Don’t be Vague)
- Do not Name more than two characters (Don’t have to Name Any)
- Show, don’t Tell
- Expand on Your Logline
- Don’t Give Away Big Plot Twists
- Don’t Tell the Whole Story
- Spotlight Three Major Components
Hint, not Show, Plot Twists or Excitement Factors
James Scott Bell: Start with These Three Components:
- Character and Their Status Quo
- Catalyst (but then …)
- High Stakes (now)
Start Here, then Perfect it through Your Narrative Voice
James Scott Bell’s Starter Template
First Sentence: Identify Protagonist, their Vocation, and their Status Quo
Second: but when + main plot problem (inciting incident)
Third: “death” stakes
Example: Starter Blurb for “The Guest List” by Lucy Foley
First Sentence: On a rocky, eerie island, guests gather to celebrate a smart, ambitious bride (also a newspaper publisher) and a handsome, charming and rising television star groom for their wedding.
Second: But when the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. Then, the lights go out and a waitress screams, reporting blood … someone might be dead.
Third. Now, as past crimes come to light, the wedding party must search for answers (and a potential body), before someone – or multiple people – end up dead.
Final Blurb
On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: a handsome and charming, rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious bride, a newspaper publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty, and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.
But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin their drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidently ruins her dress. The bride’s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.
And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t with the happy couple well? And, perhaps more important, why?
Note: This expands with specificity, not telling.
Use a Story Check
Want/Goal.
- Bride and Groom: to get married
- Guests: survive the night. Discover who died and why.
Conflict
- Old resentments make for a messy wedding, even if it had been
expertly planned
Crisis/Decision
- Do wrongdoers confront their crimes and seed redemption – or
suffer the consequences
Internal Arc
- (implied) The characters must face their flaws and past wrongs or
risk death (or other consequences)
Blurb Definition (further enlarged):
- A Blurb is a Sales Copy that often Appears in the Back Cover of a
Book, and that Writers Use to Pitch Their Manuscript in a Query
Letter
- It is a Short, Persuasive Description of a Story’s Key Selling Points
- The Hook of Your Book is an All-Encompassing Component of a Story
That Defends Why It is Different than Other Books in the Same Genre
- A Hook-worthy Blurb Emphasizes a character and their status quo
(and vocation/want), an inciting incident that upsets the status quo, and a crisis with high stakes
Crime Blurb Case Studies
Key Elements to Look For
- Title: Feel like the genre?
- Blurb
- character + status quo + want/vocation
- inciting incident/catalyst
- now + high stakes (these will probably deal with death and justice –
(in the crime/mystery genre)
- Hook: what makes this book stand out from others in its genre
Story Check
Want/Goal. What does the main character want?
Conflict. What’s the main conflict preventing this goal?
Crisis/Decision. What are two equally weighted decisions, two equally good
or equally bad, the character needs to decide between (that impact main death stakes)?
Internal Arc (suggested) What are the expectations for character
transformation?
Blurb Definition (further enlarged):
- A Blurb is a Sales Copy that often Appears in the Back Cover of a
Book, and that Writers Use to Pitch Their Manuscript in a Query
Letter
- It is a Short, Persuasive Description of a Story’s Key Selling Points
- The Hook of Your Book is an All-Encompassing Component of a Story
That Defends Why It is Different than Other Books in the Same Genre
- A Hook-worthy Blurb Emphasizes a character and their status quo
(and vocation/want), an inciting incident that upsets the status quo, and a crisis with high stakes
- A Great Way to Study Crime Blurbs – and Get Good at Writing One – is to Look at Several in Your Genre and Identify How it Includes the Three Essential Elements and a Hook – All of Which can be Verified by a Story Check that Looks at Character Wants/Goals, Conflict, Crisis, and an Implied Character Arc. (P.S., Avoid Rhetorical Questions if You are Writing Your Blurb in a Query Letter, even Though You See Them in Back Covers. Rhetorical Questions are usually Telling, not Showing)
Final Case Study (Cozy Mystery): Murder, She Barked
Holly Miller’s life has gone to the dogs. She has no job; her boyfriend’s former flame is sniffing around, and a scruffy but loveable Jack Russel Terrier is scattering crumbs all over her borrowed car. Just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse, a phone call about her grandmother sends her rushing home to the family inn at Wagtail Mountain.
The staff – and a frisky Calico kitten names Twinkletoes – adopts Holly and her new dog on arrival. But someone in this friendly town is bad to the bone. One of the employees at the in has been killed in a hit-and-run accident – which is looking anything but accidental. Now Holly and her furry companions will have to nose out the murderer before someone else gets muzzled.
Blurb
Character + Status Quo. Holly Miller, jobless, losing interest in her boyfriend, owns a Jack Russel Terrier that is messy. )things are not good overall)
Inciting Incident. Troubling phone call about her grandmother.
Now + High Stakes. An employees at the in is killed in a hit-and-run accident that doesn’t look accidental. Holly and her furry companions need to figure out who the murdered is.
Hook
The Sugar Maple In in Wagtail, Virginia, is the country’s premier vacation spot for pet owners who can’t bear to leave their furry pets behind – detective sleuth and her furry companions.
Story Check
Want/Goal:
- To help her grandmother – and then
- Bring the hit-and-run criminal to justice
Conflict
- Someone in this town is bad to the bone
Crisis/Decision
- Does Holly team up with her furry companions to solve the murder or return to her unhappy life (and potentially let more people die?)
Internal Arc
- Suggested, Holly has an unhappy life – she’s in a low place, so by the end of the novel she needs to find her inner strength – which can make her happy – before she can catch the criminal.