[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Thanks a lot, Catlady. I really like your version very much.

Some of the differences between my version (and I'm posting a new version at the end of this thread making a hybrid of yours and mine) and yours is that I was hoping to make Annie likeable by giving her a problem (the overbearing father) as opposed to just a college kid wanting to get into a good college. I also thought it set up her father thinking she was exaggerating her fears about Monroe (in the second paragraph of the blurb).

Why would Annie need anything extra to be likeable? When I read a book, I automatically begin with the assumption that the protagonist is likeable/relatable. Why does she need some special reason to take the job? That's detail for the story itself; it just bogs down the blurb.

Also, who cares what her father thinks? He wasn't important enough to make the cut in your initial blurb. Isn't it enough that a teenager is facing off against a powerful man? Of course anyone she confides in is going to tell her she's overreacting and exaggerating. Again, the specifics are for the book itself, not the blurb.

I thought both of our versions established what the problem was, but your version only asked the questions as to what might happen, while my version said what Annie would do. Don't the readers want to know what the protagonist does to attempt solving the problem?

As a reader, what I want to know is the problem the protagonist has to deal with. I know that she's going to face obstacles and complications and dangers, because otherwise there wouldn't be a book. In the blurb, the details just sound confusing.

And I thought that last line of yours

Or will she become entrapped in the web of lies, deception, and evil that threatens both the innocent child and Annie herself?

didn't seem to logically follow the previous line. So Annie convinces someone (or not) to take her word against Monroe's, or she's entrapped in the web of lies, deception etc... ? Why?

That line also seemed sudden. In that Monroe was just "unconcerned" and suddenly there's this whole thing of lies, deception etc.

I don't know, I'm obviously just finding my way with this blurb, but I appreciate your help.

Maybe. But your version of the blurb that I was working from also just went from his crazy parenting style to the web of lies.

Hope you don't mind my saying this, but I think your versions are getting worse, not better, because of too many details being added.