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Poll #2176

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 23

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Fanfiction summaries should be:

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A brief description of the story's premise
22 (95.7%)

An snappy pull quote that gives some hint at what the story is about
17 (73.9%)

A few key phrases that indicate the story's genre or trope
10 (43.5%)

An adroit tagline, not unlike a movie tagline
9 (39.1%)

Another sort I will tell you about in comments
0 (0.0%)

Does it affect your decision to read/click or not when a story is posted or linked to without a summary?

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Yes
10 (43.5%)

No
3 (13.0%)

Sometimes
10 (43.5%)

So, do you actually look at summaries?

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Yes
17 (73.9%)

No - I like to be surprised
2 (8.7%)

No - I give it a chance by reading regardless
0 (0.0%)

Not necessarily - I find other info more useful for making a choice to read (pairing, rating, warnings, genre, author)
4 (17.4%)

This poll on LJ: http://angstslashhope.livejournal.com/1611906.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Fanfiction summaries should be:

Not all of them at once, though.

Indeed.

If I don't know the author I prefer there to be a summary. I'm not picky about what constitutes the summary, but I like something, anything to indicate whether the author can spell and construct a sentence, and whether their mind goes places I want to go at that moment.

Lack of a summary affects whether I read/click or not but the effect isn't always to turn me away. If there's no summary other factors will take over, including how adventuresome I feel.

On the other hand, if I know the author the summary is additional fun!

I'm an either/or on the summary or pithy pull quote - and I know as a writer they're hard to write. That said they're not ruddy pron, so it's laziness not to have something there.

I will read a story with no summary presented by the author, but only in a couple of circumstances - someone else has made comment about it in such a way as it catches my interest (which is why I hang around in fic search communities) or if I'm sufficiently familiar with a writer's work to be willing to trust that I will enjoy it. A summary is a taste of the author's writing - if I don't like it, I don't expect to like the longer work either.