DISCUSSION: How Important Are Summaries?

[Snuggle Tier List]

If a fic has no summary, I pass.

It doesn't mean the fic's low quality. The summary and the fic are entirely separate entities (unless things are REALLY weird). I just have no gauge of the author's talent or style. Knowing genre helps, but what I really need is a quality indicator. Something that proves the author knows what they're talking about, is able to execute on their ideas, and has similar personal tastes to mine. Otherwise, I'm not going to enjoy what I read. So I don't.

Meanwhile, I've noticed summaries are in short supply across the Writer's Workshop. Either they're nonexistent, plain lists of details (genre, fandom, fic type, update schedule, etc.), or lack enough substance to prove the fic's worth the time investment. Noticing a trend, I started reading the first few paragraphs of every work as a "pseudo-summary", but I'm unable to find hooks in these first few paragraphs.

To me, summaries are very important. But that's a personal calculation. I have other ways to spend my limited free time, and I'd rather spend my time on proven entertainment. This is unique to me, or rather, it's unique so far as I know.

Which leads me to my main point: How important are summaries to you? How do you determine if a fic is worth the time investment? If summaries are or are not important to you, why or why not? And just so we're on the same page: What's the point of a summary, anyways?

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

I have to say, summaries are really helpful. If I don't see one, I rarely have the inclination to read through in hopes that the plot is about something interesting to me. There's a reason you find blurbs on almost all novels — you can't just read the first 200 words and tell whether the content is something you could get invested in. Otherwise the convention would be to start off like a classic play and spell out the story in the first paragraphs.

However, I don't think summaries can really be held to represent prose quality, as it doesn't take a considerable degree of skill to write a presentable summary.

 

[Beth Pavell]

I think of summaries as being analogous to a book's blurb - all I want is a general idea of what kind of story I'm going to read. I suppose some readers are considerably pickier, which explains the kind of summary that gives a big plot outline plus a list of shipping names. A summary can give you an idea how how much effort an author has put in. If the summary contains a misspelled character name and no capitals, that's usually an indication that story is going to be slapdash and lazy

 

[Snuggle Tier List]

Quick opinion: fanfic summaries are not blurbs. To demonstrate, here's some summaries I just wrote for nonexistent fics:

Hannah lived a sheltered life with many dreams and desires. This fic is where Hannah stops being sheltered. This fic is where Hannah starts chasing dreams. She wants to meet a Pokémon, and she isn't scared, no matter how much her friends and family and teachers explain. She will see a Pokémon with her own eyes, and her life will never be sheltered again.

Stanley was a shameful man who did very many shameful things. He knew he was shameful. His community knew he was shameful. We all know he was shameful. And so, Stanley was shunned. And, Stanley will atone.

It will not be easy for Stanley. Being a model citizen takes much sacrifice. Nevertheless, he will become one of us. They all do.

Sarah says she wants to be the Kanto Pokémon Champion. Ashley says he will be the Kanto Pokémon Champion. Sarah says Pokémon are wonderful creatures. Ashley says Pokémon are powerful creatures. Sarah says the best trainers care for all their Pokémon. Ashley says, in battle, sacrifices must be made. And neither of them are good liers.

This fic follows Sarah and Ashley on their Pokémon journeys. Only one will be champion. Sarah and Ashley hate each other. Who wants it more?

If I read more summarizes like the above, I would read a lot more fan fiction. Blurbs are by publishers. Fanfic summaries are by authors. Authors: prove yourselves!

 

[Nitro Indigo]

^ I'm not sure what you mean by that.

Anyway, I constantly worry that my summaries aren't good enough. Whenever I post something on Fimfiction, I feel the need to be overdramatic, with rhetorical questions, multiple paragraphs, and background information, mainly because there's a risk that a story will fail moderation because the summary was inadequate, and it turned out that Pokémon/My Little Pokémon crossovers weren't my true calling. I have more trouble with short summaries on that site.

Meanwhile, on Archive of Our Own, I couldn't think of an elaborate summary for my Pokémon/Fullmetal Alchemist crossover drabble-anthology whose overarching plot hasn't developed yet, so I came up with a hook instead:

The youngest member of the Amestrian military is a Pikachu.

While the first half of that may mean nothing to you if you know nothing about Fullmetal Alchemist, the point is that I went for a show, don't tell approach; "Fullmetal Alchemist AU where alchemists and their families are Pokémon" would have sounded boring.

(I've also been wanting to edit the first chapter to improve Edchu's characterisation, but I haven't gotten around to it.)

 

[canisaries]

If I read more summarizes like the above, I would read a lot more fan fiction. Blurbs are by publishers. Fanfic summaries are by authors. Authors: prove yourselves!

Obvious counterpoint: self-published books. But I think I get your idea. Authors can tend to favor accuracy and explaining themselves over making the fic sound as alluring or interesting as possible.

I always try read the summary and/or author's notes. I only really fail when the AN turn out to be very long (or hard to read), but even then I try to skim to get an idea of the context. I have a long history of being picky, and while I've been working on it, I most often don't dive into a story if the summary doesn't captivate me. It's also influenced a lot by the fact that I don't like dropping things mid-chapter and so avoid starting a story unless I know I'm going to finish the first chapter.

I have found out, though, that summaries can make me (and why not others) get impressions drastically different from what the actual story is like, so I've tried to give more things fair shots despite not being super intrigued by the premise. Sometimes I can find something I really enjoy.

Some fics can be tough to summarize. It's already made somewhat difficult by the fact that authors often get blind to their own works and can't really tell what aspects are the most visible or the best quality and therefore most suitable for the summary. For example, while Dragony was pretty naturally summarized by just "hey there's this eevee obsessed with dragons and he's gonna try to become one by getting to this macguffin", I still don't really know how to summarize Hunter, Haunted. Sure, there's the premise it's built upon (a murderer's victim comes back from the dead as a ghost and he needs to get rid of it), but there's a lot more to the fic than just that, such as exploration of the protagonist's psychology and mental health. It's not just some sidenote or subplot, but it isn't the whole plot, either, so I'm not sure how much I should bring it forth in the summary.

 

[Snuggle Tier List]

^ I'm not sure what you mean by that.

My demonstration wasn't self-evident, my bad. Do you mind if I quote a better writer than me?

The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn’t induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead. And if the second sentence doesn’t induce him to continue to the third sentence, it’s equally dead. Of such a progression of sentences, each tugging the reader forward until he is hooked, a writer constructs that fateful unit, the “lead.”

...

Therefore your lead must capture the reader immediately and force him to keep reading. It must cajole him with freshness, or novelty, or paradox, or humor, or surprise, or with an unusual idea, or an interesting fact, or a question. Anything will do, as long as it nudges his curiosity and tugs at his sleeve.

Next the lead must do some real work. It must provide hard details that tell the reader why the piece was written and why he ought to read it. But don’t dwell on the reason. Coax the reader a little more; keep him inquisitive.

Technically, "On Writing Well" is on writing nonfiction well, but since a summary is nonfiction, I consider it credible. To sum up: I believe a summary should be written in a way that entices me to read the entire summary. I don't care how it gets done, so long as the summary itself is gripping. Because if the summary can grab my attention, that demonstrates the author is capable of grabbing attention.

Again, subjective judgment. I'm not factoring in, say, reputation. I'm new to the fanfic community; I don't know who's tastes match with mine. And I'm sure there's plenty of other good reasons someone would dive in blind.

I've actually been swinging back and forth on this topic the past few months, trying to decide what summaries should be presented how. For instance, I put my summary for "KAIJUMON" in spoiler tags because I believe the fic itself hooks within a few sentences. But the author's notes for my poetry collection I consider complimentary to my poems, to the point the author's note are part of the story. And I toyed with an epitaph for "Battle With Me: Pokémon XD"; it's a research-heavy fic, so I quoted an academic right out the gate. People don't normally review summaries, so I'm hoping a good discussion can suss out some ideas.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Blurbs are by publishers. Fanfic summaries are by authors. Authors: prove yourselves!

Well, if a fanfic has a blurb, one might expect that it was necessarily written by the author. We do write our "blurbs". Fanfics are not traditional novels. We self-publish, in forum threads, for free, in increments, with free reign to edit wildly, and to include any kind of auxiliary content we please, in a format which permits criticism, praise, and general discussion to intersperse with prose chapters. Naturally, a fanfic's "blurb" is not the same thing as a novel's.

This is another semantic discussion, in which I would happily describe your summary examples as being blurbs. You can qualify them with "but they're written by the author" or "but they're Good Writing" but they're still functionally the same thing. I.e. a bit of writing to "pitch" a story to a prospective reader, that describes said story.

I certainly agree with your desire for author to write interesting, prosaic, narrative summaries/blurbs, but not so much in assigning any particular value to one word over the other. Considering your previously expressed disregard for "grammah," I would have anticipated a more descriptivist take on broadly synonymous terminology from you, Snuggle!

 

[Snuggle Tier List]

Considering your previously expressed disregard for "grammah," I would have anticipated a more descriptivist take on broadly synonymous terminology from you, Snuggle!

Objection! For I am a descriptivist, and I charge you, unrepentantAuthor, with being a prescriptionist!

Courtroom gasp!

The word blurb, as commonly understood by the general public, is associated with a publicity piece and thus not associated with the author! The word blurb, as commonly understood within the fanfic community, is not analogous to the general public's usage of blurb, good sir! Therefore, your use of terminology is exclusive if those not within the community, and thus prescriptive upon those unfamiliar with unwritten community norms!

Courtroom murmuring, judge bangs gavel

JUDGE: Mr. Snuggles, what evidence do you have to suggest the general public views blurbs as primarily written by publishers?
ME: Merriam-Webster and Wikipedia!
JUDGE: But both of your examples acknowledge a wider understanding of blurbs than you claim!
ME: Crap!

(This forum post brought to you by Snuggles Eating Crow™. Snuggles Eating Crow: because uA is right)

 

[Beth Pavell]

It occurs to me an interesting exercise might be for fanfic authors to write blurbs (Or summaries, whatever) for each other's stories

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

(This forum post brought to you by Snuggles Eating Crow™. Snuggles Eating Crow: because uA is right)

Fuckin lmao, enjoy your bird meal.

It occurs to me an interesting exercise might be for fanfic authors to write blurbs (Or summaries, whatever) for each other's stories

I actually love this.

 

[namohysip]

Alright, time for me to come in with my slightly unconventional opinion.

How important are summaries to you?

On a scale of 1 to 10, as a reader? I'd give it a 2, maybe a 3 if I'm in a good mood.

I legitimately just don't read summaries for the most part.

Even less so for author introductions or things like that. Quick example: the first line in Different Eyes that I read was the foreword in the story itself. I completely skipped the summary and intro post.

If a summary is really short and to the point, I'd be inclined to give it (the summary) a read, but I usually just dive right into the prologue/chapter 1 without a second thought. Usually I can glean the genre and the subject matter from just word of mouth or skimming the opening post, and that's sorta all I need. Summaries... are rarely useful for me. They're either too flowery for me to really know what the story is actually going to be like, or--even worse, for my tastes--the prose itself is also that flowery, which will probably make me hop away pretty quickly.

Prose that dabbles forever is not something I'm interested in. I want a story first, and an exercise in language second, so that probably also contributes to how little I care about excessive summaries. But I guess that's neither here nor there.

How do you determine if a fic is worth the time investment?

For a one-shot, I usually just read it all the way through unless it's just really bad or I didn't expect it to be about what I thought it would be (sometimes because of the summary!)

Regarding summaries being like blurbs, I don't really see much of a distinction in the fanfiction realm, especially when there's a lot of crossover between the two depending on how writers want to depict themselves. And for that reason, I've become kinda jaded toward the importance, weight, or even relevance of a summary. If I see flowery language or bombastic prose, I instantly switch to, 'Well, they're probably excessively hyping themselves...' and if I see something bare-bones, I find myself thinking, 'Hm? And what's in this mysterious gray box...?'

This 100% ties in with my curiosity and the fact that I love love love lore tropes, so perhaps that's why I don't like when summaries give away too much. Oh! And more importantly, if a summary outright spoils major plot points, perhaps in the middle of the story, even... WHY!? Why would you do that?! I wanted to be surprised! I wanted to see it coming from my own expectations, not yours! I understand if it's an early spoiler (example: Shulk gets the Monado) but if it's something that happens near midgame... ugh. Please. Never do this.

If summaries are or are not important to you, why or why not?

See above, but to reiterate: I favor short, quick summaries that can tell me (vaguely!) what to expect, who I'm following, and perhaps a feel for what sort of genre it's going to be. And because something like that is very hard to do (and people who "are good at summaries" sometimes wind up making summaries that mislead me...) I found myself taking up the attitude, 'Prove it.' And actually read the work proper.

I've found a lot of hidden gems this way, so I have no regrets about taking a bit of extra time to read the full piece rather than rely on the "first parts" -- especially if the plot is a slow burn. I know that, especially in fanfiction, readers are very, very impatient... but slow burns are something I appreciate, as long as it doesn't go on for too long.

This is a bit ironic coming from me, since most feedback I've gotten about the early chapters of my main work call it very fast-paced. This is particularly interesting because PMD stories are notorious for being slow to start, perhaps because of the nature of the source material. Maybe I've internalized the impatience of most readers to give them a good hook because I recognize that I'm abnormally patient when it comes to story content.

That being said... I would at least like a summary, even if it's just one line. A premise. I'm very likely to read a one-line summary, and then move to the main work with that sentence in mind.

What's the point of a summary, anyways?

I guess I'll treat this as an overall statement.

Summaries are supposed to give me an idea of what the work will be like, or what it will cover. This is easier said than done for longer works, especially if, the deeper you summarize, the more you spoil. I could easily extend Hands of Creation's summary for several paragraphs. However, it could become a synopsis and, more worrisome, it'll spoil major elements of the story if I delve too far into its intertwined plot. As a reader, I hate that, so as a writer, I won't.

It's as the original post said: a summary is not indicative of the quality of a work. It can be really good and the work is subpar. It can be really bare and the work speaks for itself.

And I think that's a major issue if someone is going to put any weight on it to determine if something is worth reading or not. It's a catch-22. The summary is the first thing you see, yet it might not even be accurate. It might not even be in the same style. So what then?

My answer was to just skip it and let the work speak for itself.

...To add, though, I know that I'm probably in a minority here. So for that reason, at least for my main work, I take the time to make a summary that wouldn't irritate the tar out of me, but still be adequate for most readers. I revisit it every few months if I come up with a better summary.

 

[Snuggle Tier List]

@namohysip I like seeing minority opinions! I'd rather not get the boxing gloves on; do you mind if I ask some probing questions? Some of these are a bit personal, so feel free to pass.

• About how much freetime do you have?
• Can a detailed summary give an idea of what a work looks like without spoilers?
• Do you think a bad author can write a good summary?
• Why do you think a summary isn't indicative of the quality of the work? (And for my own writing's sake; what part of my OP made me express that view? It's not one I personally hold nor intended to communicate; could you narrow down where I gave the wrong idea?)

I'll leave it at this, as I don't want to overwhelm with questions. And no judgments; you seem passionate about the topic, and I'm genuinely curious to squeeze out your thoughts.

 

[Beth Pavell]

I legitimately just don't read summaries for the most part.

Even less so for author introductions or things like that. Quick example: the first line in Different Eyes that I read was the foreword in the story itself. I completely skipped the summary and intro post.

There is certain information I'll skip over. I'm not interested in contextual details that should really be in the story - to put it in more concrete terms, it ought to be obvious from reading that a story takes place in the anime-verse. Authors putting an excess of these details into the summary is usually a red flag, in that sense.

That being said, a summary and an introduction can serve separate purposes. Taking The Long Walk by way of example:

For Joshua Cook and Evelina Joy, it's a long walk to the Silver Conference - but neither trainer is battling to be the very best. A coming-of-age story of adventure, friendship, and being a young adult in the world of Pokémon.

Welcome one, welcome all, to The Long Walk. This story is intended to be a more mature take on the ubiquitous journey fic, with strong overtures of slice-of-life. The story follows two young adults as they embark on their trainer journey through Johto.

That's the summary - a short, blurb-like description (fanfiction.net friendly), plus a little elaboration to better establish what the genre is compared to any other journey fic. The next paragraph is introduction:

A couple of things I’d like to say at the outset: first of all, thank you to all you readers who leave comments, they are appreciated. And that includes those comments from readers who don’t think they’re much good at reviewing. I read them all, I think about them all, and I frequently refer back to them while I’m writing and editing chapters. Secondly, thanks to my beta reader AetherX, who always seems to manage to find time to read my drafts between projects.

It doesn't say anything about the story - it's not supposed to. The purpose is to interact with the reader, given that this is posted on a forum

 

[Nitro Indigo]

I remember once reading a fanfic which made no sense of you didn't read the summary. Show, don't tell.

 

[namohysip]

About how much freetime do you have?

On weekends, I have a bit more free time (assuming work doesn't ask me to pull an all-nighter for some software-critical thing, but that's unrelated) but still have family obligations, gym, and so on, as well as some time that I dedicate to streaming. But beyond that, weekends are when I can take a break and relax, mostly.

Weekdays, I've got an 8 hour workday, plus a 3 hour commute, so that definitely eats away at most of my free time. Add on daily maintenance and things like that, and actually having time to write/edit my own work, and perhaps do some other hobbies (I like playing games, too...) the actual time I have to read other folks' work is fairly small. So in terms of needing a summary as a "shorthand" for whether I'd like a work or not if I'm strapped for time, I'm afraid I'm a counterexample~

Can a detailed summary give an idea of what a work looks like without spoilers?

Kiiiinda? If you mean detailed you mean giving specific information, then that either means that the work takes a LONG time to get to what the author considers "the good part" where the spoilers are guarded, which is something I personally don't care for, or they're just talking about the premise or basic information in a way that could have either been conveyed in narrative without throwing it all at me at once, or could have been shortened and said the same amount.

That's just in general, though. Obviously there are exceptions; in terms of an "is it possible" statement, usually, yes, it's possible. Just less common.

Do you think a bad author can write a good summary?

Same as above; while unlikely, it's still possible. As you said, a summary and a work are (usually) separate entities, and they're very different monsters. Someone can be good at making their summary pop or otherwise stand out... but the work itself, a long-form piece especially, might not be. It's marketing vs. the actual product. This is partly why I'm so jaded about trusting summaries, to be honest...

Why do you think a summary isn't indicative of the quality of the work?

See above~

But I do agree that there can be a general trend of a good summary potentially leading to a good story. But for me, I just haven't seen that correlation be strong enough for me to consider it worth it to give the summary as much weight as most would.

And for my own writing's sake; what part of my OP made me express that view? It's not one I personally hold nor intended to communicate; could you narrow down where I gave the wrong idea?)

Your opening statement made me interpret it that way.

If a fic has no summary, I pass.

It doesn't mean the fic's low quality. The summary and the fic are entirely separate entities (unless things are REALLY weird). I just have no gauge of the author's talent or style.

So, you're right that you have no idea what the author is capable of if you don't see a summary, since that at least provides some information. But as you said, they're totally separate entities, and as I'd like to add, require different writing approaches. And some people are better at one than the other... and in the end, I don't care about the summary once I start reading. So I, for the most part, skim for essential information (genre, general subject matter, usually) and then hop in. Everything else in the summary is just hype/filler. Which can be very effective! Just... not something I let affect me.

 

[kintsugi]

Hmmm, upon reading the title I thought I'd definitely be in the majority, but it would appear that I'm actually more in the minority here. I'm mostly ambivalent to summaries, and don't expect them on works or put them on my own when I publish them here (despite having them on their FFN versions of publication). might reconsider that given the reactions I've seen here tho

This does bring up an interesting dichotomy for me personally, though: summaries are my bread-and-butter for picking books to read (either in a store or online), and if I'm perusing FFN or AO3. I think in the latter's case it's more rooted in format, as the summary is displayed next to the title, and they're often short and very quick to digest. Furthermore, there's a much higher variation in quality on FFN, so usually I use summaries to weed out Aura/Harem/Betrayal/[cliche of your choice] here fics, which already leaves little room to be picky with the remaining 5%.

I think the comment on how you wouldn't be able to pick out what a fic is about is particularly interesting, simply because of the format of fan fiction — unlike with books, it’s very rare that I’m sitting down to read an entire fanfic at once. Even though I’m usually reading something that has the intent of being a serial work, more often than not I’m signing on to read a collection of related short stories published once a week rather than a novel. The experience is different. The time commitment is different. The level of what I expecting ends up being very different as well. I’ll find myself reading much further outside of my preferred genres with fanfic if I enjoy the tone/prose of a story than I would reading a full novel simply because most fanfics are unfinished.

And that’s where I think that dichotomy arises: I don’t often read fanfics for plot. Unless the work is done, it doesn’t really matter for me if the summary is hinting that Character is gonna do Thing and change World, because that likely won’t happen until chapter 35, which I won’t see for another three years, by which point I’ve ostensibly become invested in reading the story regardless of the summary. What ends up being more important for me, then, is tone/style, which is almost always readily apparent in the first chapter — and is probably why I am less tolerant of the “the style gets better after chapter ten” gambit. I am curious to know if this greatly affects my forgiveness/willingness to put up with fics/rate of dropping off on the reading curve compared to others.

That being said, fanfic is very much ruled by the readers. While I usually rely on prologues/first chapters to do the hooking, I might end up putting summaries back on if that’s the general convention now.

 

[Snuggle Tier List]

@namohysip Thanks for the reply! There's a lot of statements I don't personally agree with, but based on this:

But I do agree that there can be a general trend of a good summary potentially leading to a good story. But for me, I just haven't seen that correlation be strong enough for me to consider it worth it to give the summary as much weight as most would.

It seems you have anecdotal evidence backing your opinions. I guess we could debate theory, but I can't debate your personal experiences. I don't share your experience, so I have different opinions. I'm probably not going to change your experiences with a debate.

I can say that my personal experiences are different than yours. For instance, in a college-level English course I once took, writing summaries was taught as a stepping stone to full-fledged papers. It was a generalized English class: not necessarily creative writing, but it did teach writing basics that can be applied to all forms of writing (write what you know, keep your audience in mind, etc). So I do think there's some skill crossover between summary writing and fic writing.

And I do think fanfiction.net's restrictive summary policies may have contributed to good authors becoming dismissive of summary-writing, despite them sharing DNA. During my Tv Tropes fueled history lesson on fanfic culture (and as I've started to see anecdotally), fanfiction.net was the singular place to be back in the day. It's massively influential and still massively popular, and so I'd expect fanfiction.net emigrants and cross-posters to write summaries based on fanfiction.net's guidelines. I don't think that's a good mindset, but rather than spew sone theory, I have an idea.

It occurs to me an interesting exercise might be for fanfic authors to write blurbs (Or summaries, whatever) for each other's stories

This sounds like an interesting game. Would give some examples of summaries. Perhaps it'd reveal correlations. Maybe I should start a thread...

EDIT: Link to "The Summary Game"

 

[namohysip]

I guess we could debate theory, but I can't debate your personal experiences.

While true, I do think you've brushed upon a bit of the theory already, just below:

in a college-level English course I once took, writing summaries was taught as a stepping stone to full-fledged papers. It was a generalized English class: not necessarily creative writing, but it did teach writing basics that can be applied to all forms of writing

So, yes. Summaries (and abstracts, if we want to go this route) are very effective for getting the gist of a written piece finished. This is really important for academics in particular, and essay writing and so on can use a lot of summarizing. But here's something that I think I neglected to brush upon until just now, and I think this might contribute to why I don't put as much weight on summaries for creative work.

In essays, "spoilers" in your summary is outright encouraged. Even more for abstracts. The conclusion is in the abstract. "How it ends" and "the whole point" is meant to be there, and you go in to see the details of why it's like that, with data and methodology and so on. You usually don't want to give away the ending in your summary for a creative work, which is typically longer (ignoring a thesis or dissertation, but even then, novels and epics give them some competition).

One thing that I also really value in a creative work is story structure, plot pacing, information management, and character interactions -- things that you simply can't depict well in a summary, which is meant to be concise and not too much of a spoiler. You can surely "say" it's a fast-paced plot, or a heart-pounding adventure, or a woven multilayered mystery, but that's just telling. I don't actually know how clumsily or how elegantly these mysterious words were fulfilled in the actual story. I don't know if any of these characters are actually funny, or likable, or colorful, or anything in the practical sense.

That's the difference here, and why I can't equate the practice of summarizing nonfiction with the art of summarizing fiction.

So I do think there's some skill crossover between summary writing and fic writing.

There is definitely crossover for all forms of writing in one way or another. For summarizing, it's the ability to distill something you wrote into a bite-sized paragraph, or paragraphs, while retaining essential information. It diverges from there between fiction and nonfiction in what to depict or express, but in essence, it's the same. But as I mentioned above, what I actually get from it is a different story.

I do think fanfiction.net's restrictive summary policies may have contributed to good authors becoming dismissive of summary-writing, despite them sharing DNA.

Okay, this I agree with. I suuuper don't like how restrictive FFN's summary size is. Even AO3's is a little restrictive when I actually sat down and tried to make a longer summary (turns out, AO3 readers really like excerpts, but I couldn't fit mine...) So I'll agree there. FFN's on the extreme side, and I wish they at least, like... maybe doubled their character limit for them or so. I will admit, though, that as a reader, I'm not too disadvantaged by it, since I just read the work anyway, so long as the basic information fits my criteria.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Co-signing Namo's point about summaries not necessarily demonstrating the properties of the creative work at hand.

Also, I published fanfic on FFN way back in 2006-ish, and the summary length drove me absolutely nuts back then. And it still does. That website has barely evolved in over a decade.