Anna Tizard: award-winning fantasy & dreampunk🖌

Writers! On the Brainstoryum podcast I bring you: * a surrealist word game that generates unique prompts using YOUR word suggestions * writing tips & publishing opportunities! * Laughs, thoughts, tea drinking Then I roll a 12-sided dice to go deeper⬇️ annatizard.com/brainstoryum

Got questions about our upcoming indie author event in Shrewsbury? Hopefully this quick video will answer them, but if not feel free to reach out and ask one of the team!

@RebekahAClark That's so true - very incisive!

@AnnaTizard If you wanted to hype up a kid to go to the zoo, you wouldn't have to list every exhibit they've got there. Just, "Who wants to go to the zoo and see a bunch of animals, yay!" is plenty!

Does anyone really struggle with writing a book blurb? I mean, REALLY struggle? I feel like summarising is the complete opposite to what we writers normally do. 🤔 #writingcommunity

Just a quiet reminder that your weekend is not weird enough without Brainstoryum! This is imagination-yoga for writers. Includes amazing short fiction from listeners, publishing opportunities, laughs and live tea drinking! 😁🫖☕️ #writingcommunity

@War_Arrow No, that makes sense, thanks. Surprises are a central thing for me when it comes to writing (and reading)--cannot get enough of them. So that's the way to go!

@AnnaTizard Keep at it until you no longer have the feeling you'd put the book back on the shelf if it were written by someone else. Try to surprise yourself. You get there in the end. Sorry for the arguably bland / obvious advice, but that's what works for me.

@BikerNerdAuthor That's a great idea, thanks! I feel like that would be some full-on training. 🙂

Our book blurbs are hard because we try to stuff too much info into the blurb. We're too close to the project. Try this: write a book blurb for 5 of your favorite books by other authors, WITHOUT looking at their actual blurbs. Limit it to three paragraphs with the goal of creating interest and excitement for someone who hasn't read it. No spoilers. When those sound good, and you test them on couple of fellow genre fans, apply the same technique to your book.

@DanNEO_SS Appreciate this thread! Very pertinent right now. I like to have a central hub that readers can come to. Yes, I'm lost in a sea of tat, but when it's my site, I have control over it. If a platform dies, I'm still here. Plus I have interactive stuff that I couldn't do elsewhere.

Okay, okay. Serious discussion for indie authors and people who work online: I increasingly feel like the internet is changing in a way that makes independent websites far less valuable than they used to be. 🧵

@DanNEO_SS The best case I've heard for having a website these days is: what if you lose your social network accounts (whatever the reason... hacking, barred etc.)? So your website's essentially your backup: presence, storage, indexation, you name it.

@NutshellWriter You know, I did try that out of curiosity, but sadly I was not impressed with what it came up with.

@AnnaTizard I feel like allowimg AI to help w this is ok. Not writing the novel but just summary n synopsis help.

@AbbeyNetwork Thanks, but I think I've nailed it now. Needed to sleep on it!

Yes 😄 a lot of writers actually struggle with blurbs because it forces you to compress something long-form into a very different skill set clarity, hook, and emotional positioning instead of full storytelling. If you want, I can help break your blurb down into a clean hook + core stakes + reader promise so it feels sharper and more market-ready 👍

@laurelworlds Great idea!

@AnnaTizard That's why you start on the blurb as you are writing it. I make a "meta data" word file for it so i can rewrite it a dozen times without the pressure of being in the middle of writing.

@DaemiRhys Interesting idea!

@AnnaTizard Genuinely, I have written one book and have decided that it is easier to write it before the book

@MitchellDHadley 😁

@AnnaTizard Too much, and somehow not enough at the same time!

@MitchellDHadley Very true. We know too much!

@AnnaTizard I also find that, since we know everything about the book, it becomes much more difficult to know what to reveal and what not to reveal.

@AlysonMB1 Well, I have a podcast where I'll be announcing it soon, and I'm British, so I only have to "posh it up" a bit, darling. (Sweetie-darling.) 😆

@AnnaTizard I would love to see that. It would be Absolutely Fabulous! (And for the right books, it would probably work well for making the blurb, Darlings)

@MitchellDHadley If anything, I'd say that writing fiction pretty much trains us NOT to summarise stuff. We write "in the moment", throwing our readers into the thick of what's happening. So it's no wonder!

@AnnaTizard I'm with you. I can write it, but I can't describe it.

@NLVracar 😲Really? I had no idea! So--does that mean I accurately captured your writing style/ theme? 😁

Read an article by @AnnaTizard about the game of exquisite corpse. Her discussion of my own contributions reminds me of how I was going to name a book The Ordinary Extraordinary, and how I’ve developed that theme over the years. spotlightindie.co.uk/2026/05/11/gue…

@AlysonMB1 Oh, that's a great idea! (Although I find it easier to do a Joanna Lumley impression! 😆)

You are definitely not alone! I think we all find it a little difficult. I sometimes try to imagine it being read out like a Hollywood movie trailer, you know how they used to have that man with a deep voice saying "In a world where ..." That kind of puts me in a different mental frame for it.

@AlysonMB1 That's a great way of putting it, thank you, Alyson. It's this "taster" language that I find difficult, it just doesn't come naturally to me. But I think I might have managed it. I'm down to 133 words (mainly so my cover designer doesn't go crazy trying to fit it on the back)!

If you feel the blurb is 'summarising', then maybe you are starting in the wrong place! The blurb has to present activities and characters in the book in such a way that it catches readers' attention. It SHOUTS out some of the events, but never the resolutions. And it must always be fundamentally honest!

@Raven_Kamali Well... that's an idea? 🤔

@AnnaTizard Yes. I can't write a blurb. I suck at them. I don't know what to do about them. My reviewers write better blurbs for my books. I should have them write my blurbs. 😄