Students walking in the door were greeted by Juliet sitting on the front of her desk, a PowerPoint already projecting on the screen reading Titles and Summaries. As everyone sat down in desks, a few students fiddled around with the papers that were on every desk.

"Hello everyone, and welcome back to Fanfiction Writing Class. I'm sure you've all noticed the blank paper, and I'd like you to fold a piece in half, write you name on it and set it upright at the front of your desks so I can know all your names. I'll give you a minute to do this now." There was a mad scrambling for pens and pencils and Juliet shut her eyes with a soft sigh. It took much longer than it should have for everyone to settle down and she opened her eyes to see a few of the students scowling with messed up hair and clothes. "You know what? I don't think I want to know," Juliet said lowly to herself.

"Moving on! Can someone tell me what it is that helps you find a fanfiction and helps you decide whether to read it or not?" Silence. "No one?" She looked around and no one would meet her eyes. Zeroing in on one boy who glanced up at the PowerPoint on the screen she read his name tag. "Hunter, can you tell me what the screen says?"

"Titles and summaries." He said.

"Thank you, the answer is titles and summaries," She repeated louder so the whole class could hear. Several students started scribbling down notes. "Now I don't know about you, but I don't just click on any story and start reading, I like to look for things that interest me, and to find that I look at the title and summary. A lot of writers seem to think they can come up with a good title or summary right on the spot as they start posting, because after all, it's a very small bit of writing. I would like to say that is false. Because there is so little writing involved, you need to really think about what you include. This is your first impression and if you don't put effort into it, you'll lose readers. You want something interesting that makes people actually want to read your story."

Juliet clicked a button on her remote and the PowerPoint went to the next slide which had a few key points bulleted. "Titles need to be given some thought. What genre is your fanfiction? You don't want a cutesy title if your story is bleeding out enough angst to make an emo boy band look well-adjusted. On the other side, stay away from too serious titles if your fic is a bit of fluff and cuddle. Try not to be misleading.

"Honestly, the title doesn't have to be perfect, and you don't have to absolutely love it. You just don't want to change it a dozen times throughout the story and confuse the crap out of your readers. My suggestion is to have an idea of what your fanfiction is about and where it is going, and then write a list of words that you associate with it. Then you can play around with those words, combine them however you like and you might get something you think fits. Or you can go the literal way and state what the fic is, like 'Fanfiction Writing Class.' It's not pretty, but it gets the job done with no false assumptions. If you're lucky, you might even come up with a title that's memorable."

She clicked to the next slide and an example of a summary was shown.

A class at genric uni about writting fanfics. each chapter is about a different tip. Pleaseread and reveiw!First fic!NO FLAMES!1!

Juliet waited until everyone had read the summary before continuing. "Let's go over what's wrong here and how you can apply this to your own summaries. First things first, the spelling, or more accurately the lack of spelling. It is important to always use spellcheck, and try to reread what you wrote again the next day. Sometimes if you reread something right after you wrote it, you'll read it how you meant to write it instead of how it is actually written. Waiting a while before going over it again is a very important step. Make sure that everything is capitalized that needs to be, like the beginning of a sentence and the names of people and places. Pay attention to the spaces between old and new sentences, and don't use more than one exclamation point. It aggravates the majority of potential readers if there is a '1' in with the '!' so I'd suggest to never do it. You aren't ten anymore, you don't have a free pass to do that.

"I often see summaries with the phrases 'first fic,' 'please read,' 'not very good at summaries,' 'don't like, don't read,' and 'not very good'. I know that when these things are added it's usually the writer trying to protect themselves from hurt because they have low self-esteem, but honestly it harms them more than it helps. 'First fic' turns away readers because you pretty much just told them that you're inexperienced. It then attracts people who attack beginners and bully them. 'Please read' makes it sound like you need to beg people into reading your story because it's so bad. If you're 'not very good at summaries' then how are people to know if you are any better at stories? It also makes it sound like you just gave up and shrugged your shoulders at the fact that your summary isn't that good. 'Don't like, don't read' might sound logical to those using it, but it actually sounds like you can't accept that people might not like something you wrote. And generally people aren't going to read things they don't like anyway, unless they're trolls. If you outright tell us it's 'not very good' people might take you at your word and not bother checking it out. All of these phrases are a waste of your character limit!" Clicking the remote, a new summary showed up underneath the flawed one.

A class is held at Generic University about tips on writing fanfiction. Each chapter is another day dedicated to something new, varying from how to write a summary, Mary Sues, new ways to reinvent clichés, OCs, how to find a beta, and so much more!

"Please note the correct spellings and capitalizations. There are no words smashed together, excess exclamation points, or phrases warning you away. I've also included more on what you can find inside, and a few keywords that will help more people find me. What I mean by keywords is that when you know you like a certain kind of story, you tend to use the search bar and keywords are what you would use to find that type of story. So if you want more people to read your story, think about what words you would use to find similar fanfiction and try to incorporate that into your summary so it will show up in a search. Before we move on, I would like to make sure you all know that my summary is by no means perfect, but it gets my point across." Juliet waited until she saw a few heads nod before she clicked to the next slide.

"Because this story doesn't have a real plot, romances, any twists or whatever else you can put in an average fanfiction, the summary isn't a good example for everything. I'm going to use a few Harry Potter scenarios as some examples because of how big that fandom is. Let's say that in one made-up fic Harry trusts a friend absolutely and they never give any doubt to their loyalties. So in the summary you don't give away the huge plot twist where it comes out the friend is working for Voldemort! Or maybe in another story there are two characters who are competing to date Harry, and the whole plot is about who he chooses. It would really kill the suspense if you gave it all away by putting the end pairing in the summary. For yet another story, if you write a summary about how Harry is rescued from the Dursleys, sorted into Ravenclaw, cures lycanthropy, kills Voldemort with the help of the spiders and marries the giant squid, no one will care about reading it because you just gave away the entire plot. Many people won't care how well written and dramatic it is if they know exactly how it'll turn out. Seriously, don't give away everything in the summary!"

She sighed. "Here's my biggest pet peeve. Questions like 'who will they choose?' or 'what will happen?' are the most irritating thing in my opinion. This doesn't make your story intriguing. It's the same thing we see in every other story, nothing special. And since the reader didn't come up with the question themselves while reading your description, they aren't that invested in the answer. You can make your summaries a bit mysterious if you really want to, but remember to be careful not to make it so vague that no one knows what's going on either.

"Well, overall, watch your spelling and grammar. Don't put down your writing abilities. Use keywords that make you easier to find in a search. Don't give away too much, but you still need to give us something substantial. It's a good idea to include who the main character is, what the conflict is, and where and when this is happening. Keep it clear and concise."

A girl with black and blue streaked hair interrupted, "What about point of view? Is it okay to use first person in a summary?"

"Please wait until I call on you before asking your question Sapphire," Juliet said firmly. "But about point of view… Well, I would strongly suggest to use third person. In first person it's difficult to give a good idea of who you are and what's going on without it sounding silly. But if you feel you absolutely have to do it in first person, just go for it." Sapphire nodded. "That actually reminds me of something else people do in summaries: using excerpts from the fanfiction. I'm not an expert on this, so I can't talk much about doing it, but I feel the need to mention I've very rarely seen it done well. It doesn't usually carry much information on what's going on in the story, but when it's done well it can be very suspenseful. I would like to say don't do it unless you know what you're doing, but that won't stop people. If you are going to do this, it might be a good idea to use a cliffhanger and stay away from filler."

The loud sound of a zipper interrupted what Juliet was going to say next and directed everyone's gaze to the back of the class. A girl in the process of stuffing her notebook into her backpack froze, her face turning red. "Umm—ah, I mean, I need to leave for my next class!" She squeaked.

Juliet laughed. "It's fine, it's time to leave anyway. I'll see you all next time." She waved as everyone packed up and left.