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AC POSTING GUIDELINES (site not forum)

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colorguard_diva:
Well anything on a phone is going to be long, including summaries. I've read a short chapter of like 700 words and it seemed liked a never ending saga....lol.

I've seen a few that have had 16 sentences. It didn't bother me and it didn't give away the whole story either.

I really just think it's a matter of personal taste. We all have pet peeves when it comes to the site, fan fiction and life in general. I'm sure we could go on for hours talking about them....lol.

I don't think people should abuse the sumarry rule and post a whole chapter, but I'm okay with a longer summary if it doesn't go overboard in telling the whole story or repeat itself.

Sometimes I think people don't actually read the summaries anyway. I think they look for who the story is about and if it's about the guy they like they read it. I don't think I've ever gotten a review that said, well I really am not into Nick, but your sumarry was so captivating that I just had to read it.  Personally, I'd love that to happen, but maybe it's a wish  of mine. I think people are definitely more incline to read stories about the guy/guys they like more than anything.

julilly:
Before the rule was even in place there was already a couple of people we contacted and asked to trim it down because people started posting their prologues as summaries. 500-700 words.

Like I said before, this has been a topic of discussion for years. It's up to the discretion of myself and Mare to determine whether or not something is "too long".

It's not like if someone posts a summary of "I came. I saw. I conquered." we're going to say the sentences are too long. I think I speak for both of us when I say we have pretty good judgement and up until this point we have used that judgement to make executive decisions when it comes to enforcement of the existing rules.

It's not about the quality of the summary, or whether or not someone reveals their whole plot - I'm not reading them, nor do I likely want to. It's about allowing every single author the same amount of space to get the attention of readers in the interest of being fair.

Since you keep bringing up the fact that it's all about personal taste I would have to disagree that people will just read anything depending on who the main character is - summaries do matter. That's why stories with badly written summaries usually have a lower read count and less reviews than those that don't. Those are facts, not opinions.

colorguard_diva:
I don't think anyone is judging the choices you and mare make. Personally, I think you do a fine job. 

Personally, I think it all comes down to preference of each person on the site. I've read a lot of great stories that have great summaries that didn't get a ton of reads (looking at the read count) or reviews because they weren't about a certain Backstreet Boy or weren't about the Backstreet Boys. You can't tell me that it's not about what people like or don't like. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. People read what they want to read.

You go to the book store and you see the same exact thing. Certain books are read more than others for various reasons. Sometimes really great books go unnoticed.

I've also seen not so good stories on AC get tons of reviews. This are ones that have grammar mistakes,  no plot line, etc., but were about a popular Backstreet Boy. (But that would be my opinion of a story, other people might find it to be the best story out there.)

I'm not saying it's right or wrong. Just an observation. I'm usually not one who is of the common opinion about things. As you can see my opinion varies from most. We can openly discuss this topic of the rules and never come up with a perfect solution for everyone. I do like hearing everyone's thoughts even if we all don't agree. If we all agreed, I'd worry because then we'd be robots....lol.

Tri:
Just throwing my two cents in from a reader's point of view.  The function of summaries is, in my opinion, to give a brief synopsis of the story.  If summaries are too long, I usually pass over them.  I almost always read the summaries before I even look at the genres, characters, or categories.  I know I don't speak for everyone, but it might be something for authors to keep in mind if they're trying to draw readers in.  I have gone outside of my genre/characters comfort zone because of really awesome summaries.  :)

mare:
If its true and summaries don't matter, it's all the more reason to cut them to short as possible.

Summary: eh, it's about Nick and he's hot, so please read it.

Perfect length! lol

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