Help with My Blurb/Summary Thing

[LockedBox]

Hey guys. I've been crossposting my stuff to AO3 for a while now and recently realized that the little summary I had listed form my original fic Mix Beer With Liquor and You Will Get Sicker really wasn't the best. I've been too used the the short text limits of AFF, I suppose, but time to fix it!

This is what I have now, not bad but it definitly could be better:

Lauchlan awakes one morning with a pounding headache and another man curled into his side. The events that follow turn his life upside down, dredge up a landslide of emotions he was not ready to deal with and generally make his life a misery. Yet, somewhere along the line, he finds the time to fall in love.

There are some new drafts I made, placing emphasis on slighly different factors. I was hoping that you guys could offer me some feedback on what is/isn't working. Which would make you feel more inclined to read the fic, and what changes you think should be made, stuff like that.

Here's the first one. Meant to put emphasis on Lauchlans character arch, specifically:

Lauchlan lead a simple life, a happy one, and all things considered he was quite lucky. He had a steady job, a roof over his head and food on his plate, a family who loved him, if from a distance, and good company to surround himself by.

All it took was one night and a few too many pints for it to come crashing down around his head.

He didn’t know what drove him to it, didn’t know what he’d do, didn’t know what he’d done. All he knew was that he woke up in strangers bed, with a stranger man curled against his side with bruises like handprints on his hips, and the sinking realization that what he’d done could never be taken back, never undone.

He never thought he was the sort of man who would do such a thing. Never thought himself capable. Then again, he'd never thought he’d come to like it. Never would have believed he’d come to love him.

It turned out that there were a lot of things he’d never thought before.

Another, meant to emphasis the romance itself:

Lauchlan was a simple man, with simple desires.

He had a good food, good company, and a good home to come to at night. Sure, he was alone, but, he had never had the silver tongue and stalwart heart for romance, anyway. He’d learned his lesson once, and was determined to be happy with what he had.

His drunken self had other plans.

Now, there’s a man in his life, god forbid that was never a phrase he thought he’d say, who seems awfully keen that he hold up his end of a bargain he doesn’t remember making.

It was not a situation he ever though he’d find himself in, never thought his loneliness would drive him to this, but, he finds that the longer goes on, the less that he minds.

He always was a fool, and now, his fool heart was falling in love all over again.

And the third, with emphasis on the time period and the plot twits that got the two of them into the situation in the first place:

There couldn’t have been a worse person to wake up to, not in all of England.

Corbin is crass and rude and oddly insightful, but he’s also, most importantly, a man,

And Lauchlan, is, himself, a man, if a man with a bleeding heart and nerves of tissue paper. Really, that he awoke beside another man, a man with bruises like handprints on his hips and a cocky smirk on his lips, it should be reason enough to have him committed.

But, he values his freedom more than he values his dignity, so he agrees, and as he settles this favour he owes Corbin, he’s surprised by how little it bothers him. Every day, Corbin being a man, matter less and less, until he’s just Corbin, and Lauchlan is just Lauchlan, and he fears, no, not fear, believes, that, maybe, he could fall in love with this man.

He was still the worst possible person he could have woken up along side, but, Lauchlan finds that he really couldn’t care less.

I like the first one best, but I think that it still needs a fair bit more work. I'm not sure if it's too punchy or tropey. I'm going for a back of a romance novel type blurb, but I don't want to go too over the tope with the buzz words and trope dropping. Any advice or reccomendations would be much appreciated.

[BronxWench]

Okay.

First of all, there are two kinds of marketing blurbs when you publish. There is a short, two to three sentence blurb that needs to be very catchy, and then there's the back of the book type summary.

What you have now fits the first category.

What you propose is the second sort. Of the three examples you have there, the first is the one that catches the attention best, with some judicious tweaking:

"Lauchlan lead led a simple life, a happy one, and all things considered, he was quite lucky. He had a steady job, a roof over his head, and food on his plate, a family who loved him, if from a distance, and good company to surround himself by.

All it took was one night and a few too many pints for it to come crashing down around his head.

He didn’t know what drove him to it, didn’t know what he’d do, didn’t know what he’d done. All he knew was that he'd woken up in a strangers bed, with a stranger man curled against his side, with bruises like handprints on his hips, and the sinking realization that what he’d done could never be taken back, never undone.

He never thought he was the sort of man who would do such a thing. Never thought himself capable. Then again, he'd never thought he’d come to like it. Never would have believed he’d come to love the stranger him.

It turned out that there were a lot of things he’d never thought before."

Try that on for size. My editor tells me I'm getting better at these.