6. Middling – opposites make a blurb

"Head on collision between airliners?" by The Ken Cook is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

‘There is no energy unless there is a tension of opposites.’ Carl Jung

Opposites, according to science and literature, attract. Or, in the case of matter and anti-matter, they annihilate one another. Either way, you get a reaction and that is the key to structuring your blurb. In any blurb I write I look for the tension (literally: to stretch): the two elements that are in direct opposition, that are most clearly colliding or pulling away from one another. The lovers who cannot be together because their families are involved in a murderous feud. The detective who suspects her boss covered up a murder. The two men who haven’t met in forty years dining together and about to discuss the woman they both loved.

Opposition powers our stories. Generally, these opposites emerge from the protagonist’s problem: they want something and something or someone else is preventing them from getting it. So far, so beginner’s guide to writing.

Take The Lord of the Rings. Let’s baldly state Frodo’s problem:

Little Frodo must destroy the all-powerful one ring.
But the ring’s maker Sauron will use all his considerable power to stop him.

That’s fine and I’ve seen many fantasy blurbs saying pretty much that (usually at length). Yet, can we be a bit more interesting? Can we add some depth, a little human universality to our proposal?

Another way to think about these tensions is that of story versus theme. The story is generally what the protagonist wants to achieve. The theme, however, concerns what the protagonist usually (and the reader hopefully definitely) will come to understand over the course of the tale. Often the theme is in direct opposition to what a hero desires (though it is often what they really need – see most big-budget Hollywood movies).

Speaking of which, here’s The Lord of the Rings again:
Story: Frodo wants to destroy the all-powerful one-ring.
Theme: Power corrupts.*

You’ll notice that these aren’t conventional opposites, but they are in direct opposition to one another with regard to what Frodo wants/needs. So when we restate Frodo’s problem in terms of story versus theme we get:

Frodo must carry the powerful one ring to Mount Doom.
But doing so risks destroying his soul.

For me, this feels like a hook I can really get my teeth into as a reader. I care more about Frodo’s quest potentially destroying his good heart than I do about whether he’ll overcome the evil Sauron. That’s an interesting story. (The writer William Storr in The Science of Storytelling argues that a protagonist should have what he calls a sacred flaw – something that leads them into conflict with themselves, and which must be overcome. The ring is Frodo’s sacred flaw.)

This is fine, but we as discerning readers still want more. We like our stories to have beginnings, middles and ends. And so, mostly (but not always) should blurbs – though blurb ends are usually a question or an uncertainty of outcome . . . (or indeed an ellipsis)

Which brings us to the Central Dramatic Argument, which I’ve shamelessly lifted from Craig Mazin over at Scriptnotes. And if you do any kind of writing it is certainly worth a read – particularly, I imagine, if you’re seeking to write Hollywood style.

Mazin takes the story versus theme idea and chucks it in the blender that is the Hegelian Dialectic. Don’t worry about the terminology. It’s very simple. It is a three-stage development or process: thesis, antithesis, synthesis. The statement of an idea. A reaction that contradicts or negates the idea. And, finally, a resolution between our idea and its contradiction. Otherwise known as beginning, middle and end.

Or with our story versus theme angle for our blurbs: story, theme and promise/question.
Let’s take The Lord of the Rings again, and poor suffering Frodo:

• Thesis: Good-hearted Frodo must bear the evil ring of power

• Antithesis: But the ring corrupts all who bear it

• Synthesis: Is a good heart proof against the ring’s evil?

So now we have a three-part structure for writing our blurb. Before we’ve even written a word we know where we begin, where we need to go and where we’ll end. So let’s write it:

The day his uncle vanishes from the gentle Shire, young hobbit Frodo Baggins receives the strangest of inheritances. A golden ring which bestows invisibility on its wearer. But the wizard Gandalf the Grey tells Frodo it is a dangerous gift – a weapon of immense power that others have long been seeking.

Instructed by Gandalf to flee with the ring, Frodo is joined by a fellowship of dwarves, elves and humans. They pledge to help Frodo destroy the ring before it can get back to its evil maker. But the ring feeds the darkest thoughts, corrupting all in its circle.

And no one more so than small but resilient Frodo. For his quest will be long, dangerous and terrifying, and every day the ring’s whispers will grow harder to resist . . .

Three simple paragraphs, broadly following our thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Notice how most of the detail supports the general thrust of each paragraph. We have one broad idea in each one. This keeps things simple for the reader. Three ideas bound by the tension between them.

That said. The above is a little pedestrian. I wouldn’t be surprised if a Large Language Model produced something similar. What happens if we push it harder, working our story’s tensions and using structural tensions such as mixing up short and long sentences and paragraphs. How about the below:

Frodo is a good person: kind, loyal, conscientious. He’s one of the most liked hobbits in the Shire. Which makes what he’s about to do all the harder – vanish, and tell no one.

It’s all the fault of the One Ring.

Given to him by his Uncle Bilbo, Frodo finds that while the ring bestows a gift – invsibility – it also has a mind of its own. It whispers to him. It turns his thoughts dark. He feels it corrupting him.

The wizard Gandalf understands the One Ring’s true power, and that its terrible maker Sauron wants it back. This cannot happen. Trusting in Frodo’s remarkable resistance to the ring’s evil, he sends the hobbit on a quest to destroy it.

A quest with one of two outcomes – the end of the world, or the destruction of Frodo’s soul . . .

The above concentrates less on the world and more on the battle for Frodo’s soul. To my mind it feels more interesting because it is almost all about character and the novel’s stakes. However, a lover of the fantasy genre may be more interested in knowing a little more about the wider world, which the earlier blurb touches on. They might want more battles, for starters. We can still use the same structure, but we can add more detail of the world to the basic bones of the story. We concentrate less on Frodo’s conflict and more on the conflict in the world, less on character and more on the great forces in play.

Something a little like this, perhaps:

On his uncle’s 111th birthday, young hobbit Frodo Baggins receives a small gift – a ring of invisibility.

But it is no boon, but a curse.

For this ring belongs to Sauron, dark lord of Middle-earth. He made it to control the lands of men, elves, dwarves and, yes, hobbits. Many believe him long dead – but he is stirring, and he wants his power – his One Ring – back.

Too late, Frodo discovers he must flee his home. Dark riders roam the land searching for the One Ring, while armies are on the move.

As the old alliances between races falter and the inhabitants of Middle-earth prepare themselves for war, Frodo and a small band of companions seek the most dangerous route of all. A desperate bid to destroy the ring and Sauron’s power – deep in his own realm.

Yet the closer they get the more the ring whispers poison in Frodo’s ear and weakens his small but stout heart . . .

Alternatively, we could change our story and theme and begin again, telling a different story. So, change your ideas (thesis, antithesis, synthesis) and you’ll change the blurb you are writing.

In summary, know the oppositions in your story and have them clash to bring drama to your blurb. If you’re looking for depth, get your theme to clash with your protagonist’s story. Keep your structure simple to read by ensuring your blurb has a beginning, a middle and an end.

Next we’re going to have a look at blurb geometry to see how we can simply rework blurbs by bending them out of shape.

* There are other themes and so other approaches to take when writing a blurb for The Lord of the Rings. Its versatility is its strength.

The sixth in a series of eight posts on how to write your own cover copy, revised and reposted from the Milford SF writers’ blog in Summer 2020.