Wikipedia talk:How to streamline a plot summary

Great work!

... is it a good idea to post feedback here?

Nice work. I think this is a really useful document. I have some suggestions already - I'll respond in more detail later.

Would you object to me editing the document directly? It's well written already, but it'd be nice to set an example and make this really clean, sharp prose - for example, you can delete "In order" from your first sentence... ;) Popcornduff (talk) 16:03, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

@Popcornduff: Thank you for the kind words. Sure, you can edit it. I was initially going to write it more ironically, but I changed my mind. There may be a few ironic sentences left. Also, my first draft is usually quite messy, so it wouldn't be too surprising to find a few unintentional instances mixed in. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 17:13, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

I've read this all properly now and I think it's great. There's lots of stuff I'd probably word differently, but I don't want to pick a fight over it.

Incidentally, here's a pet peeve I hate about plot summaries: when editors include things like "the film ends with..." and "in a post-credits scene..." apart from the fact that they're usually redundant anyway, I think they should be removed because they describe the film, not the plot. I think other editors might disagree, but I think this should even extend to saying things like "in a flashback", because flashbacks are narrative devices - they don't exist in the story. What do you think? Popcornduff (talk) 16:20, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

@Popcornduff: It's fine to reword my lazy prose if you can improve it. Or maybe you can come up with better examples. I included "the film ends as" and "in the opening scene", but I forgot about the pre- and post-credits sequences. I hadn't really thought about "in a flashback", and I don't know how I feel about that. It seems harmless enough, but you make a decent case against it. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 21:43, 6 June 2015 (UTC)