If you’re looking for an easy way to write blurbs, why not use the structure most writers use — whether they know it or not. It’s based on the three act story structure, as featured in this portal fantasy blueprint. The structure is three acts split into three sections each like this:
Act I — Set Up
Exposition — The setup. Show your protagonist in their ordinary life.
Inciting Incident — The thing that happens to start the protagonist on their journey through the plot.
Plot Point One — The thing that solidifies the protagonist going on their journey (despite the inciting incident, they may still have been reluctant.)
Act II — Confrontation
Rising Action — The protagonist tries to resolve the conflict they are experiencing (spoiler: they don’t).
Midpoint — Plot twist!
The Description
You’ll notice that my structure ends in the middle of Act II. That’s because we’re writing a description — and we don’t want to give away the ending. So, forget about Plot Point Two and all of Act III, because we don’t need them; with a just a few additions, we’ve got all we need to write a killer book description right here.
Before the Acts
Before you dive into the description, you want to start with a blurb, a sentence or two you might use in your advertising to excite people’s interest. Put it in bold at the top. Let’s look at a few from some current bestsellers.
Two hundred years ago, the generation starship Pathfinder fled a war-torn Earth, never to be heard from again. Until now…
Science fiction bestseller
A former slave fighting for justice. A reclusive warrior who no longer believes it exists. And a dark magic that will entangle their fates.
Fantasy bestseller
If it’s a later book in a series, a lot of descriptions start like this:
The stunning third book in the sexy, action-packed Crescent City series, following the global bestsellers House of Earth and Blood and House of Sky and Breath.
Romance bestseller
Some people like to put author comps and tropes in their blurb (most common in romance):
For fantasy romance readers who love Raven Kennedy, Amanda Bouchet, and Carissa Broadbent. This slow burn, enemies-to-lovers series will enchant you…
Fantasy romance bestseller
As you can see, it’s more important to pick what you think will get readers to continue reading rather than whether you talk about characters, plot, or theme.
After that, we dive into the structure.
Exposition
Introduce (briefly) the main character:
Jane was a lonely widget-maker at AMCO. She was happy enough, working days and knitting at night, but felt something was missing from her life.
Inciting Incident
Then one Halloween, a living scarecrow bursts into the warehouse where she works, and her life is turned upside down.
Rising Action
With chaos inside and a heavily armed police force outside, Jane has to dig deep into her knitting bag to save the lives of her coworkers from the terrifying scarecrow…
Midpoint
You just want to hint at the plot twist, not give it away.
who might be there for a different reason than people think. Could it be… Love?
Post-Description
End with a general line with priming language to encourage a sale :
Dive into the adventure with Jane etc.
Putting it All Together
So, here’s the description for Knit One, Pearl Boo! with formatting:
Scare-crow? Or scare-beau?
Jane was a lonely widget-maker at AMCO. She was happy enough, working days and knitting at night, but felt something was missing from her life. Then one Halloween, a living scarecrow bursts into the warehouse where she works, and her life is turned upside down.
With chaos inside and a heavily armed police force outside, Jane has to dig deep into her knitting bag to save the lives of her coworkers from the terrifying scarecrow who might be there for a different reason than people think. Could it be…
Love?
Dive into adventure with Jane and the scarecrow in this romantic horror story of forbidden love, aggressive policing, and the difficulty of knitting sweaters while on the run.
Alterations
With more than one protagonist, you can repeat the exposition for each character before diving into the inciting incident. But don’t spend too long on each one. You have little time to catch a potential reader’s attention.
The opening blurb and ending tag are optional; look to your particular genre to see what the trends are. I like them no matter what, as the first is a great way to be clever and hook someone, and the last has some opportunities to get some keywords in, as well as priming language to encourage a sale.