Forum:Should novels & audio stories have a plot description?
This feeds in slightly from the Forum:Character information on novels, etc discussion.
How much information should we include on story articles? Novels and audio stories don't have a plot description. They both have Publisher's summaries, which serve a similar role to the 'Synopsis' on the TV story pages. Is this enough?
Should we have a Plot or Summary section on all the novel and audio story articles? --Tangerineduel / talk 14:31, March 16, 2011 (UTC)
A lot of those synopses are taken care of thanks to the folks at Tetrap. However, there are some gaps in their coverage of all the materials, so there are at least limited circumstances where a synopsis by us would be useful. Any such synopses would have to be pretty short, and of course would be seriously laden with spoilers.
It's amusing in some respects. A lot of the plots can already be assembled by visiting the linked pages of people/places/things -- a definite Exercise for the Readers. I'd be in favor of including (and writing!) short synopses. --Gousha 21:31, March 22, 2011 (UTC)
I don't think we need them. Basically, synopis's are the same as the publishers description, and that is what they want us to think. If you made an audio story and along with it made a summary, would you want other people to edit that? To create a balanced plot description, you would have had to listen/read the story. Ghastly9090 16:07, March 23, 2011 (UTC)
Why are you on about synopsis', and obviously you will need to know the plot. I'm not really sure what Ghastly9090 is asking it terms of his "would you want other people to edit that?" comment. Everything on wikia is editable.
I don't see why audios and novels shouldn't have a plot section, so long as its not plagiarised.----Skittles the hog--Talk 17:13, March 23, 2011 (UTC)
Should we? ... Yes of course! The accompanying blurb / publisher's summary (whatever) 'from source' is simply there as a means of selling the story in the same way as teasers, often punctuated with questions whose answers will be revealed within (audio or novels) and for completists only right that that information is presented in the article. Much of this material will be in circulation for a limited time and as the wiki is a long-term point of reference I can't see where the objection is. A summary of the story should reflect the length of the original (ie anything on a short story for example shouldn't be written up longer than original (which I have seen on occassions on other sites!). Surely only those who had read/listened to the adventure would feel competant to create the appropriate related articles - which probably goes some way to explaning the number of gaps. On a side note I recently received preview copies of the new Doctor Who children's books where, judging by the accompanying letter, I was activly being encouraged to use the web to promote my thoughts on it and "get it out there!". To suggest otherwise would seem to suggest that coverage given to a comic adventure for example should only be along the lines of "The Doctor,Amy and Rory chase a dangerous rainbow!" - hardly a fitting article! So yeah in short "More the merrier" - so much to do and so little time individually, but thats not the point is it!! The Librarian 19:16, March 23, 2011 (UTC)
- Sure, we should have our own written plot summaries. We use solicitations in comic stories, or "publisher's summaries" in other stories, but, as The Librarian points out, such things are advertisements. They often aren't even accurate, much less complete. We do need to attempt accurate plot descriptions on every story. The question I always had was why we didn't. I've kinda perpetuated this oversight recently by failing to include plot sections in non-televised stories, but I always thought there was some kinda discussion that had decided to omit these sections. Now that it appears there was no such discussion, I definitely feel we should compel plot sections on every type of story.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 22:28:50 Wed 23 Mar 2011
- I definitely agree with adding plot descriptions. The plot of a novel or audio story is the main focus. The events in it are listed on the character pages and other articles, so why not on the article about the story itself. --The Thirteenth Doctor 13:35, March 24, 2011 (UTC)
Isn't the point of the wikia to document everything? So why shouldn't we add plots for novels? --Revan\Talk 13:40, March 24, 2011 (UTC)
- Continuing to use the solicitations or back cover blurbs is definitely a good idea though. Putting them into a section titles "soliciation blurb" or "back cover material" (or something as such), then following that up with a proper synopsis section is the way that these things should go.
- Over on Memory Alpha, despite not focusing on novels, comics, etc in the same way that the TIF does, we always make a point of keeping the blurbs (and marking them as such, and noting that the text is either "Publisher's solicitation" or "Back cover text" and after, indicating that "Excerpts of copyrighted sources are included for review purposes only, without any intention of infringement."
- This allows people to see the back cover in an "advertising" sense to get a feel for the content of the book (or possibly to see if the book that they saw in the store is the same one they're looking at online -- I've done that!), and if they want to read the book, they can skip the synopsis section. -- sulfur 14:02, March 24, 2011 (UTC)
- Excellent, righty, I'll add the need for plot description to layout guides etc.
- As to why we've never had them, it's never been discussed (at least I don't recall it ever being discussed), but from what I've gathered it's been things like; lack of editors who have reading/listened to the source material and just a general lack of editors. --Tangerineduel / talk 14:46, March 25, 2011 (UTC)
