Wonderful imaginative lying?

     

I’m 

       I’ve had a birthday and a very unusual and rather brilliant unexpected present. I haven’t read much of it yet but I am enjoying it immensely. ‘Blurb your Enthusiasm’ subtitled ‘An A to Z of Literary Persuasion’ is by Louise Wilder. Its introduction has the title ‘Wonderful imaginative lying’. 

‘What,’ I thought, ‘surely not lying?’ Then I remembered the WI member who listened to my talk about writing fiction and even took part in the writing exercise I suggested but then came up and asked me if my books were true. I told her I had imagined the stories so she said ‘Not true then!’ She sort of harrumphed when I tried to explain that fiction can carry a truth within it, then told me ‘I don’t read made-up stories’. Ouch!

Wilder’s blurb book touches on far more than how to write an excellent blurb. Straplines or taglines receive their due with excellent examples borrowed from films such as ‘Jaws 2: Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water’. Or those with numbers, ‘One house. Two families. Three bodies.’

All her good examples give more information about what to expect. Wilder is a copy writer and writes blurbs for a living. Most of us will find ourselves writing or contributing to both taglines and blurbs. After reading the book so far, I’m looking again at my own taglines. For ‘Trying to Fly’ the tagline is ‘Haunting memories arouse a dormant mystery’. Not bad, because it introduces memories and mystery, but does it intrigue a reader enough to read the blurb on the back? I hope so.

The blurb for ‘Trying to Fly’ gives about 100 words of information about the plot ending with ‘… but who can Jenny trust? Can she even believe her new friend Jim? And will she ever fly free of the past?’ Having read only the first few chapters of Wilder’s book, I am wondering whether the whole blurb could have been snappier, or could have begun with the questions first. I can’t remember whether I drafted it, or my publisher, but I know we each had a few ideas and edited it together.

I’m looking forward to discovering more from Louise Wilder’s surprisingly funny book as I read sections with titles including, ‘King of First Lines’, ‘Great Expectations: How Dickens Kept Them Wanting More’ or ‘The Ultimate Bliss of Bad Blurbs’. 

Meanwhile, I recommend ‘Blurb your Imagination’ to anyone who loves words, whether or not they are writing made-up stories!

Annie Try loves writing fiction including books for young adults. Her latest novel, The Dangerous Dance of Emma JJ is published by Kevin Mayhew Publishers and her previous three novels, the Dr Mike Lewis Stories, by Instant Apostle. She has also written non-fiction as Angela Hobday.