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)[reply]

@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)[reply]

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)[reply]

@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)[reply]

I don't think it's necessary when you can just write "years earlier" or whatever instead. Popcornduff (talk) 14:12, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, good point. Postmodern films can be difficult to describe completely in-universe, but I notice Pulp Fiction avoids explicitly labeling anything as a flashback. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 15:05, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dude, this is awesome. You and I have so many of the same pet peeves and you've essentially written the essay I always meant to write. One you might want to consider adding that drives me batty... "The film begins with blah blah blah." In edits to clean this up I always say " avoid 'film does this' language, it rarely adds clarity, only length". Just tossing it out there for your consideration. If you are unfamiliar with this problem, check my edits yesterday and you should see a few edit summaries that pretty much say that and you'll see what I mean in my diff. Millahnna (talk) 21:34, 26 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's exactly what I said in my comments above. :) Popcornduff (talk) 21:35, 26 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Haha. OK, maybe I need to explicitly describe that. I thought "in the opening scene" was close enough, but I guess not. There's mountains of this poor writing on Wikipedia, and part of the reason why I wrote this was to purge the mounting frustration I felt while copy editing it. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 22:18, 26 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Heh. In my defense I worked in a hot kitchen all day. Totally missed that. And seriously, does that not just make you feel crazy? I'm always thinking "really? What made you think that was a good idea." I think I've seen one plot summary on here where that sort of thing worked because of abrupt scene changes that eventually lead to clues to a film's twist. Flashbacks are definitely trickier, though. Sometimes I'll write them as "Smith recalls a time when this one thing happened" and sometimes I just flat out have to call it a flashback because of story structure. They're easier to write in "film does this" language without overly bulking up the text, at least. Millahnna (talk) 22:19, 26 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia's guidelines tell people to use out-of-universe writing, so they probably get in the habit of doing so. Many people assume that more detail can only be better. I try to be flexible about this stuff, but you can tell when people are obsessed with certain topics. I still remember that gun spotter IP that you were tracking a while ago. "Bob arms himself with a .45 Colt M1911 pistol"... ugh. Maybe I should add that, too. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 01:59, 27 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've yet to find a plot summary where I've had to write "in a flashback" or even "Smith recalls...". I guess it could happen one day, but not yet - I've always found it simplest to write "years earlier", or whatever.

For me, though, it isn't just about simplicity and removing excess words (and believe me, those are my biggest priorities when it comes to Wikipedia editing). I don't think this is specified in any Wikipedia guidelines anywhere, and it's possible no one else will agree with me, but I think it's basically wrong, philosophically speaking, to include constructions like "In a flashback" or "The film begins" because those things are not in the film's plot. When you mention those things, you're describing the film's editing - technical details about the film and it structure, not its plot.

For example, I've been working on the Jurassic World article lately. The plot summary previously began: "Twenty-two years after the events of Jurassic Park, InGen has opened a fully-functional facility called "Jurassic World" on Isla Nublar." I think this is unhelpful for two reasons. The first is that it refers to a film that doesn't exist in the film's plot. The second is that it relies on the reader knowing what the film Jurassic Park is and what happened in it, when that information, if it's necessary, should (very briefly) be incorporated into the plot. Popcornduff (talk) 15:53, 27 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]