I previously discussed (towards the bottom of this post) how I used Google Bard as a tool in working on the blurb for this book. Bard generated 2543 words by my count, of which 16 were usable in a blurb of 172 words.

Here’s what I used as a starting point and fed to Bard. It’s the blurb I wrote when I was serializing the book on Vella:

To claim her inheritance, Chloe must leave her ranch for the Old World, where she mingles with monster hunters. The most dangerous of these doesn’t look the part: a quiet, sharp-dressed medical man. Dr. Maxim os Storm’s mission is to destroy those monsters which feed on human pain. He is drawn to Chloe, but she is being slowly transformed into the type of creatures he hunts. He does not know if he can cure her in time, or what she will do when she learns his secrets…

Note that this is in 3rd person, but the book itself is in first. Here’s the final blurb, with Bard’s contributions bolded:

The name’s Chloe Fortebat, and I am in trouble. I left my father’s ranch on the plains to come to the Old World: a place of airships, steampower, and monsters nobody talks about. Now I’m dodging giant werewolves with fangs the size of my knife, and the hunters crazy enough to go after them. The most dangerous of these doesn’t look the part: a quiet, sharp-dressed medical man with a tired face….

My name is Dr. Maxim os Storm, and I hunt the beasts that haunt the night. The leader of this pack of werewolves has set his mark on Miss Fortebat, but this brave lady would rather fight him than let him make her his tool. As far as I am concerned, that makes her my ally. My only chance of curing her lies with an ancient machine, hidden by my people in the caves beneath Wolf Island. We must keep that artifact out of the werewolf’s grasp at all costs, for he would put it to a terrible use….

Below the break, I have the Bard-generated content in full, with the bits I used bolded. First come the “long” versions of Chloe’s and Maxim’s POVs which came to around 1858 words and yielded nothing useful. 1-3 are Chloe’s; 4-6 are Maxim’s. Then come the “short” versions, which are where the useful bits (bolded again) come from. 7-9 are Chloe’s POV, 10-12 are Maxim’s. Bard was useful mostly because I’m a little uncomfortable writing blurbs; I can’t imagine this being an efficient way of writing blurbs for someone who was actually good at them.

Continue reading “Where Did that Come From? The Blurb for Wolf’s Trail” →