Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction

MOS:PLOT and nonfiction

I've sometimes seen editors refer to this page to imply that citations are not needed for synopses of nonfiction works. If that is true, it should be clarified, as my understanding that the guidance here exclusively applies to fictional work and plot summaries, not nonfiction creative works. czar 11:12, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm assuming that if what you want to cite is clearly shown in the film then there is no need for a citation as the primary source itself is the source, however, if what is written in the plot section needs outside context, then yes, that should be cited. Gonnym (talk) 12:57, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm thinking primarily nonfiction books: history books, essay collections, biography and autobiography. They have claims that are based in the real world rather than imagination. Is the standard that they need to be sourced to secondary sources (like all other Wikipedia content) or does this fiction guideline on Plot/Synopses also apply to nonfiction? I can move this discussion to WP:V if better discussed there. czar 13:04, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

NOT#PLOT and WAF extend from the idea that we should not be over reliant on a primary source to discuss a topic in detail if there is not independent or secondary sources about that specific aspect of a topic. So the contents of a published work, fictional or not, are typically not the type of thing discussed at depth, (reviews may touch on one or two specifics but rarely engaging in a thorough discussion of the contents) so the principle that we should stick to short summaries for nonfiction should be true as well. Masem (t) 13:16, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

On the face of it, I’m inclined to agree that PLOT does cover non-fiction in a substantially similar way—and not require citations—but such a plot summary should of course be presented as the opinions, hypotheses, narratives or theories of the author (something like: “the author contends that X was the consequence of Y and Z”). The truth or consequence or mainstream acceptance of the work could easily be covered in a later section, with appropriate sourcing.

I would still want to see examples though, because this sort of thing can be hard to discuss in the abstract. — HTGS (talk) 09:40, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Spinout articles about a singular topic

I noticed a sentence that was italicized for no apparent reason. It turns out this was done 16 years ago. Is the statement in question even still true, let alone worthy of emphasis? 183.89.250.246 (talk) 02:20, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

I've rewritten that whole paragraph, as it seemed poorly worded. 183.89.250.246 (talk) 04:11, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Plot summary points

In regards to the edits reverted here:

[1] It seemed best to make this into one sentence, as multiple storylines in one work seems like the only conceivable case where a plot summary should not follow the order of events in the story. At first, I didn't even quite grasp the train of thought here, so condensing this into one sentence seems worthwhile.

[2] There is no benefit in trying to balance the length of a plot summary with the rest of the article. Rather, you should try to write the best plot summary you can, and the best exploration of real-world aspects that you can. As I explained in the edit summary, I also felt that some of that text contradicted itself. That text could be replaced, as a correlation between plot complexity and summary length is a worthwhile point. 183.89.250.246 (talk) 06:13, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

When your edits are reverted and you make a talk page post requesting feedback, it is best practice to wait more than a day before making the same or similar edits again. Please wait for input here before making anymore changes.

• I disagree with you that there is no relationship between the length of a plot section and the rest of the article. A notable stub with a 700 word summary of the plot and nothing apart from one other sentence places undue weight on the plot itself see WP:NOTPLOT. There are, should be no, magic numbers here. This is a subjective decision made by editors based on this guidance. Adding the reference to NOVELS is helpful and I will add it back.
• I disagree with you that the only time that there are no other benefits with tweaking the timeline in the summary vs the fiction (remember that this article applies to writing about all types of fiction in articles). For example, if a character has an ulterior motive for doing something, it might make more sense in mentioning earlier in the summary, rather than then having to dedicate additional text to a relatively unimportant sub-plot regarding the reveal later. The current text provides adequate guidance to editors about when and why they should do this, which is sufficient.
• The other minor tweaks did not seem to change or improve the guidance.

As a general point, based on what I observed during your 100+ edits to NOVELs, which I wasn't able to fully monitor, please ask yourself before you edit, "what problem am I trying to solve"? Some of your edits were helpful, some of them made no real difference and were basically cosmetic and some stemmed from your misunderstanding of existing consensus. I have no doubt you're trying to make improvements, but making so many edits that mix wording and content changes are going to get reverted. I would suggest that if you see something that could maybe be worded better without changing the meaning, make one change and leave it for several days. If no one reverts it, make another one. If you see some content in a guideline that you disagree with, either make one change and open a talkpage discussion, or better yet just open a talk page discussion. I'm not trying to put you off making improvements, but you're going much too fast.Scribolt (talk) 12:11, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I was going to wait longer, but another user edited the section in question, introducing awkward wording, and I thought a better alternative would be to borrow wording from MOS:NOVEL. Then while I was at it, I made other changes. Seeing the state of disrepair some of these pages were in has made me more bold in editing them.

In regards to balancing length of the plot summary with the rest of the article, the important thing is that we do our best to write a compact plot summary and also do our best with other topics. If the rest of the article consists of only one sentence, obviously it needs to be expanded, or if it can't be, the article shouldn't exist. Also, the current wording The length of the prose should be carefully balanced with the length of the other sections, as well as the length of the story itself; simple plots may require only short summaries seems self-contradictory. A story could be long, but have a simple plot.

In regards to chronological order, mentioning an ulterior motive before it is revealed in the story was the kind of thing I originally thought that was primarily referring to. Hence this edit.

As for "minor tweaks", I would say this added a significant missing word. are notable for their own standalone article technically means something very different. Likewise, a significant word was missing here, as I noted in the edit summary, though it seemed better just to remove that whole phrase, as it was redundant. 183.89.250.246 (talk) 14:51, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

For your first point, your version doesn't recommend against writing a 700 plot summary with a five word sourced sentence, the previous version does so in my view it's better. For your second, I guess it would be slightly better if it was slightly more consistent regarding story length re plot complexity, but again what problem are we trying to solve? This is cosmetic at best, how many people are getting confused because they have a long story with a simple plot vs a short one with a complex one? This is a tweak at best, probably positive, but by lumping it with other edits that genuinely change the meaning you're making it hard for people to follow you.

Your change te he chronology is not an improvement. You removed the text that said why and when someone might do it. If doing it improves and condenses the summary, that's all an editor needs to know to do it. If it doesn't, they shouldn't.

Sufficiently maybe reads slightly better, but it doesn't seem important in terms of how editors should proceed, the subjects are either notable or not. Maybe I'm missing something? You're right about the obvious missing word, but I disagree about the redundancy, category spam needs explicity discouraging as well as simply defining what's correct.Scribolt (talk) 17:12, 25 November 2024 (UTC)