pengilly: Drift from Transformers with God's golden light shining on him (mtmte)
[personal profile] pengilly
One of my pet peeves is when I come across a fanfic rewrite of an unpopular official work, and the summary is just...like...a combination of the author self-aggrandizing and/or talking about how bad the original is, listing all the things they didn't like, and then stating what they'll do to fix it. And their dislikes/fixes are things that many fans have proposed before.

I get being upfront about what your story will be about, but if they can't be bothered to make their summary a more interesting read than a random forum post fantasizing about a hypothetical rewrite, why should I be bothered to read it?

Each author is different. Each rewrite is different. But here they are, deliberately emphasizing the same-ness of it to other people's ideas, making it sound as cookie-cutter as possible!

I think the best summary is a coherent hook for a story that stands on its own, and, as odd as it sounds, doesn't rely too much on the idea that it's a rewrite. What I mean is, hypothetically, if the original work that prompted it were to vanish from existence, would the fic still sound like something worth clicking into?
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