So many people around AFF insist that you should put one of these in your foreword:

- some kind of excerpt of your story

- prologue

- introduction (the plot)

But in reality they are all wrong, WRONG!

The meaning of foreword is following: (and these are facts)

"A preface or an introductory note, as for a book, especially by a person other than the author." - TheFreeDictionary

"Introductory remarks about the subject and/or scope of a book, preceding the main text and the introduction, written by a person other than the book's author. When a new edition of the work is published, the foreword is usually re-written or extended to inform the reader of the changes. If written by the author, it is properly called a preface." -businessdictionary

"A foreword is a (usually short) piece of writing sometimes placed at the beginning of a book or other piece of literature. Typically written by someone other than the primary author of the work, it often tells of some interaction between the writer of the foreword and the book's primary author or the story the book tells. Later editions of a book sometimes have a new foreword prepended (appearing before an older foreword if there was one), which might explain in what respects that edition differs from previous ones.

Information essential to the main text is generally placed in a set of explanatory notes, or perhaps in an introduction, rather than in the foreword or preface.

The foreword is sometimes confused with the preface, which is written by the author of the book and generally covers the story of how the book came into being or how the idea for the book was developed, and may include thanks and acknowledgments to people who were helpful to the author during the time of writing.[1] Unlike a preface, a foreword is always signed.." -wikipedia

So wtf?

"Information essential to the main text is generally placed in a set of explanatory notes, or perhaps in an introduction, rather than in the foreword or preface" This means that summary or description of the story is not placed in foreword.

"The foreword is sometimes confused with the preface" Touché! Foreword on AFF is probably preface because most of the authors don't have editors or anyone to write foreword for them, and there is no need. So "preface, which is written by the author of the book and generally covers the story of how the book came into being or how the idea for the book was developed..."

So foreword is more like a preface, there you can introduce yourselves or tell how you came up with the story idea or write a welcome note. You can even ask people to comment and subscribe but if you add huge pink posters like: keep calm and subscribe... that most probably will make you look desperate for attention and kind of pathetic... Just saying...

BUT

“This is my first story so it’s probably going to be bad”

“English is not my native language and so please don’t kill me if this story ”

“I’m not good at writing at all but I still wanted to post this story”

Now, have you ever picked up a book from a bookshelf and read something like that in the preface or on the back cover? What do we usually see there? Compliments, compliments and more compliments. Foreword on AFF is like an advertisement, it’s not where you write humble words but praise yourself and come to think of it, you deserve that since you have put all the time and efforts in writing something. Be proud of yourselves people, have pride in your works!

Reading negative things, especially written by the author him/herself, makes the reader think negatively of the story even before they get to read it. If someone bakes a cake and then says it’s probably going to taste like just when you are about to taste it, what will you think? Won’t you wonder whether you shouldn’t eat it after all?

Personally when I see something like: “My first fic, I know it .”

I think: “So this is a newbie and this fic is probably going to , next fic…” You lose a reader and a potential subscriber.

Character profiles:

Everyone posts these but as I mentioned before they just spoil the story. People who read the story probably read it because of their biases so they already know how those people look like and you probably have a poster. But if you must post character profiles why not make a separate chapter for them? That will make your first page less crowded/clumsy and more welcome and pleasant to the eye (also more organized).

Prologue:

Don't post this in description or foreword, make a separate chapter for it. Especially if the prologue is long, if it's short it can maybe work as a description.

Then what to write in the foreword?

“Thanks for dropping by, I hope you will enjoy reading this story.”

“I thought of the plot when I….” or “I like Exo so I…” or “I decided to post another story because I got inspired by…”

“If you subscribe and/or comment that would make me extra happy.”

“This might be my first story but I worked really hard to make it good.”

“This story is dedicated to…”

So on, so on, so on…

Or then you don’t have to write anything in the foreword, just leave it empty if you can’t come up with anything. 

So your table of contents will look something like this:

Foreword

Character profiles

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

.

Chapter xx

Epilogue

Author’s note etc.

Doesn't this look so sophisticated, organized and cool?