Tardis:Comics and spoilers: Difference between revisions

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 {{moss|Because comics are published over the course of months, there are special rules that apply to them.}}{{lock}}
 {{sc|T:COMIC SPOIL}}
-Comic stories are somewhat of a special case, in that an article ''may'' be started before the entirety of such a story is published.  We realise that a six-part ''[[Doctor Who Magazine]]'' story takes six months to publish, and that it would be unreasonable to stop an article being written for that long. So we allow the publication of such a story. After all, there are multi-part televised stories, and we allow each individual episode to have a page before the entire story has been broadcast.
+As compared with stories in other media, comic stories take ages to be fully published. So editors can start a page about that story from the [[T:OFF REL|official release]] of the very first instalment.
+== Keep story pages focused to released instalments only ==
+When writing a comic story page, don't go beyond what has transpired in the story '''''as currently published''''' at the time you're editing it.
+== Writing about things within the story ==
+It is often a safer course of action to wait until the story has been ''completely'' published before starting articles about the narrative elements, like characters, places or gizmos.
-However, extreme care must be taken not to go beyond what has transpired in the story '''''as currently published'''''. Because mutli-issue comic stories frequently have [[cliffhanger]]s like in [[serial]]s, you should be aware of the high percentage of times those cliffhangers are used to ''misdirect'' the reader. It is often a safer course of action to wait until the story has been ''completely'' published before starting articles about the narrative elements. If you choose to start an article about a narrative element ''before the story is fully published'', you should find a way to write about your subject without assuming that the story is telling you the full truth.  Phrases like:
+But you're '''not prohibited''' from writing about things that have already appeared in a published instalment.
-*according to Character X…
-*in the opinion of Character B…
+If you choose to start an article about a narrative element ''before the story is fully published'', it's a good idea to write about your subject without assuming that the story is telling you the full truth.  Phrases like the following helps to protect against surprises when the next instalment is published:
-*at the time that such and such happened, Character C opined…
+* ''according to Character X ...
-help to protect against surprises when the next instalment is published.
+* ''in the opinion of Character B ...
+* ''at the time that such and such happened, Character C said ...
+== Dealing with cliffhangers ==
+Multi-issue comic stories are a [[serial]] narrative form. They therefore use [[cliffhanger]]s whose main purpose is to ''misdirect'' the reader.
 Taking early parts of a comic story at face value is often a very unwise idea, as comic writers delight in telling lies that will sell issues. You must be ''very'' careful.  Think about most of the good televised cliffhangers.  If this wiki had been going when ''[[The Caves of Androzani (TV story)|The Caves of Androzani]]'' premiered, we could potentially have written that the Fifth Doctor and Peri got shot by a firing squad — something that never actually happened.  This sort of ''total'' misdirection happens at the conclusion of almost every instalment of modern comic stories.
 For this reason, it's probably best if you do not ascribe ''any'' certainty to ''anything'' contained in a comic ''cliffhanger'' until the story is completely published.