12 The surface appearance of your webnovel（3）
Author:Yang Chen（314）
5. Synopsis
Just like the title, the synopsis is one of the first things a reader will see about your story. Once a reader is attracted to check out your novel by its title or some other advertisement, the first thing they'll look at is your synopsis. The quality of your synopsis is critical as well. Although a synopsis should only be less than one hundred words, you should definitely carefully consider it with the same time that it would take you to write ten thousand words of your main story.
Some authors think that it's really headache-inducing to write a synopsis, so they simply just write a crude one, or they don't even write a synopsis at all. This is actually quite stupid.
Writing a synopsis isn't like homework. It's a chance, a chance to greatly improve your novel's attractiveness toward readers and obtain more popularity. For any author out there that wants to support themselves financially by writing, this is actually a critical space that's so difficult to purchase even with money. Wasting it so easily like this would be an incredible pity.
From a certain standpoint, the synopsis is just like the book's title. You need to show the most interesting points of your novel to the readers with only a small amount of words. In comparison, the synopsis is actually much easier to write than coming up with a book's title. After all, you can use far more words in your synopsis, so you can give the readers more information.
Most websites have rather loose restrictions on the number of words allowed in the synopsis. Still, a good synopsis should be as concise as possible. This makes a synopsis have the same properties as the beginning of a story. If your synopsis isn't simple, then the interesting points that you wanted to show will be lost in the sea of information, making it impossible for the readers to notice all of them. And if your synopsis is overly long, it won't be much of a synopsis at all.
For newcomer authors, you should follow the rule of 5 don'ts, and the rule of 5 do's.
First, let's discuss the 5 don'ts, or the five taboos of writing synopses.
First, you should avoid overly esoteric, poetic, and mysterious synopses. All of these have the same foundational problems.
If a reader checks out a book and sees that the synopsis is nothing but an incomprehensible poem, or some rather philosophical statement that the reader doesn't really understand, then it's only natural that the reader will think your novel is similar to your synopsis as well. Only readers that feel incredibly bored will possibly check out the contents of your novel after this. No normal person will feel interested anymore. This type of synopsis is even worse than having no synopsis at all. It's the biggest taboo of writing a synopsis.
The second don't is that the author shouldn't pretend to be better than everyone else. This type of author typically has some experience reading forum posts or has seen lots of criticism against wish fulfillment. And so, such an author will include "This book definitely isn't that type of book," "There's absolutely no wish fulfillment in this novel," and so on…
These authors don't realize that no matter how many people criticize wish fulfillment novels, even more readers will read such novels. The main reader base and also the biggest paying readers don't care about such criticism at all. The voices on the forums don't actually represent what's popular with the masses. If you want to go against the flow, that means you don't want to earn money.
Not to mention having such a statement in your synopsis is something similarly low-class. If your novel is truly as elegant as you stated, then you should show that in your novel's contents and the quality of your synopsis, rather than an author statement shouting "I'm writing such a snow-white pure novel!"
The third don't is to have an overly cliché and ordinary synopsis. For example, writing a synopsis that sounds like it could be a synopsis for just about any martial arts novel out there. This type of synopsis will easily cause readers to think that your novel is incredibly boring. So, this type of synopsis is also worse than not having a synopsis at all.
The fourth don't is to not have false advertising. Actually, the synopsis isn't like a story outline, and it doesn't need to completely reflect the content of your story. In fact, you can even exaggerate and modify some of the most critical elements of your story. However, if the contents of your synopsis end up having nothing to do with your main story at all, or only a very tenuous connection, this will cause the readers to become displeased, making you lose readers.
The fifth don't is to have an overly detailed synopsis which tells the readers about the entirety of your novel's contents, showing them just about every major storyline plot that will occur and telling them the end result. Even if you do a wonderful job writing such a synopsis, it's still highly disadvantageous for your story. If the readers already know what's going to happen, it's quite common that they'll lose curiosity and interest in reading your story.
The above five are the five don'ts of what authors should avoid when writing synopses. Now then, what type of synopsis is a good one?
（1） A simple synopsis
Simple synopsis. The most critical word is "simple." Simple is the most foundational requirement for a synopsis to be a good one. You need to clearly explain what your novel is about while showing its interesting points using as few words as possible.
（2） Nice-looking synopsis
Apart from being simple, a good synopsis should also pay attention to its outer appearance. Your synopsis should pay attention to its words so that you don't have a massive wall of text, and you should make your words look as neat as possible when on the website so that it seems better looking.
Also, you should avoid having all sorts of special symbols like @#$%^ or invented words in your synopsis. Of course, if such symbols or words are humorous or are indicative of your novel's style, then it's fine to use them as you wish.
（3） Your synopsis should tell the readers about your novel's genre
Genre here doesn't really refer to the big ones that everyone knows about already. I'm talking about a more general concept.
For example, is your novel a reincarnation or transmigration novel? Does your main character have magical powers? Is your novel mainly about business or politics? Is it a warfare novel or a comedy novel? And so on, and so forth. All such "genres" should be communicated to your reader as early as possible.
For instance, if you have an alternate history novel, it's best if you can tell the following points to your readers in your synopsis: that your main character went back in time, what his original job or special skills are, what time era he went back to, what identity he has in the new time era, and what he intends to do in this time era.
（4） Express the main selling point of your novel
Typically speaking, every novel should have a main selling point, or it could be said that the main character should have some sort of cheat. This point is more prominent in any story with mystical abilities. The special ability that the main character possesses is his or her cheat, along with the story's main selling point. No matter what this point is, it's best that you tell it to readers in the synopsis so that they understand what type of wish-fulfillment story it is.
Of course, some stories don't seem to have such a special selling point, such as reincarnation novels. Perhaps your main character doesn't have any special abilities apart from having reincarnated. Still, reincarnation in and of itself is a cheat as well. You just need to mention that the main character reincarnated in your synopsis, and that will be sufficient.
Of course, the selling point of your novel isn't limited to only the cheat. Even if you're only of average creativity, as long as you have an excellent plot with lots of roller coaster suspense that immerses people deeply, or maybe you have excellent descriptive detail, or a humorous writing style, you can explain any of these advantages in your synopsis. Of course, putting it in your synopsis won't prove anything, but at least it'll give the readers an idea of what type of novel they're about to read.
（5） The essence of your story should be stated in the first sentence
This point doesn't have as much to do with writing, since it's influenced by how things work. The reason is quite simple. Nowadays, novels aren't shown merely only on webnovel sites. There are all sorts of third-party websites, wireless channels, apps, and so on that might advertise and show your novel as well.
Naturally, novels that appear on major websites weren't inputted there by the website editor one book, one word at a time. Computer programs automatically copy and paste for the website. Apart from critical information like the novel's title and the author's name, most programs will typically copy the first sentence of the synopsis as the advertising phrase for your novel.
Obviously, the front portion of your synopsis, particularly the first sentence, becomes especially important.
If the first sentence a reader sees when reading your synopsis is "This novel has now been officially published, and the reader Discord channel is…"
How can this possibly help the reader understand what your novel is about, and what the interesting points in it are? The answer is obviously that it won't.
It could be said that the first sentence of your synopsis is the synopsis for your synopsis. It's a special type of introduction which is in between your novel title and your synopsis.
At any rate, the five do's and five don'ts are the basic requirements of writing a synopsis. Newcomer authors need to understand that writing a synopsis isn't truly like introducing your novel, nor is it a novel outline. It's actually taking advantage of your story's introduction to attract more readers. Its true nature is actually an advertisement!
6. Book reviews
Book reviews are a special face of your novel presented to readers. Book reviews aren't created by the author, but the author still has some control over this special area. Book reviews are highly likely to affect the popularity of your novel.
Just think about it. If you click on a novel that you've never read before and see a bunch of ranting in the book reviews, with every single book review calling the novel a piece of trash, will you really still want to read this novel? After all, it's quite common for readers to take a look at the book reviews before reading the book itself.
That's why a seemingly peaceful book review section is quite helpful to your novel's popularity. At the very least, try your best not to make the book review section into the main reason why your novel could fail.
Actually, there's not much to say about how to manage your book review section. Everyone understands that it's better to have good book reviews and avoid the flaming ones cursing the story or author. I just need to remind you authors that you should remain calm when dealing with criticizing reviews, and not to become overtaken by anger.
That's because the best way to deal with negative book reviews is to ignore them rather than verbally sparring with the reviewer. If you want to manage your own book review section, you can simply use some small tricks like helping to make a good review become the most liked and most commented review. It's best not to directly delete the negative reviews or even verbally fight back, as that would be pitting you directly against the readers.
Actually, if you calm down and think about it, these readers that offer you their criticism are the cutest of all. If you as an author can seriously read through their opinions about your story, I'm sure that you can improve yourself as an author as well.
7. Your novel's statistics
This is a rather special part of your novel's packaging.
Compared to everything else, this is more like the book review section. On the surface, your novel's statistics and book reviews have nothing to do with the author directly, as it's all decided on by the readers. But actually, they're still affected by the content of your novel. Simultaneously, the author can affect these as well.
However, the novel's statistics are far more important than the book review section. That's because not only do the statistics affect the way your story seems, it also directly influences the editors' decisions. Also, the statistics affect your novel's ranking and are highly related to your novel's popularity.
For any newcomer author with a new book, it's normal for your novel to have very low numbers at the beginning. It's also difficult for you to compete for any rankings apart from the "new books" rankings, so the statistics' influence on your novel isn't that great as it is for more established authors. Still, statistics can be quite influential. Newcomer authors can try these following methods to improve their own numbers.
（1） Voting for yourself
The first ever vote that the author casts for themselves obviously has very little effect. However, voting for yourself isn't actually for that one vote. It's more for a newcomer author to understand how a website works, its functions, how to vote, and how to understand the readers' opinion when they are voting.
All the different types of ranking votes, as well as how to add a book to a reader's library… and other such functions are all functions that newcomer authors should learn for themselves.
（2） Ask for your friends' votes
Asking for help from your close friends, especially from other authors, is another method to improve your novel's statistics. Of course, this method isn't truly to help your novel become a top-ranking novel. It's more to have newcomer authors improve their friendship and communication with each other while helping each other out. Not to mention it's a good way to jump-start your novel's statistics when you're first starting out and have very little popularity.
（3） Ask for your readers' votes
Although you don't really need to worry about becoming ranked while you're still a newcomer author, you still need to understand some logic here—a child that knows how to cry will have milk to drink. Voluntarily asking your own readers for votes can have an incredible influence on the number of votes your novel finally receives in the end.
Of course, newcomer authors typically won't have very many readers at first. But in this scenario, the newer and less popular your novel is, the more influence a few readers can have at the very beginning.
This is why newcomer authors can also try asking their own readers to vote for their novel. Still, don't spend too much effort on doing this. You need to recognize what's most important.
These are the seven factors influencing the "surface appearance" of your novel.
Although I've said it thousands and thousands of times, what truly determines if your novel will fail or not is the quality of your own novel. However, it's undeniable that all these details listed above can influence the overall popularity of your novel. I hope that all you newcomer authors will work hard on your novels and also make good use of this experience to become even more popular.
