User:DragonflySixtyseven/writing about fiction

Lots of people try to write Wikipedia articles about works of fiction (WoFs). And lots of people fail, and then their articles get deleted and they get upset.

The purpose of this page is to teach you how to do it right.

The first step in writing an article about a WoF is NOT to read the work of fiction several times until you know it deeply and profoundly and can provide many brilliant insights about its meaning. I've written Wikipedia articles about WoFs that I haven't finished reading. I've written Wikipedia articles about WofS that I never even started reading. I've even written articles about WoFs that, at the time, hadn't been published yet.

When I write about a WoF, I try to make three clusters of information.


 * 1) a statement of what the WoF is. [Title] is a [genre] novel/shortstory/whatever by [author]. It was first published in [venue], in (year). And then, if you can compress it enough, a single sentence that very lightly touches on the theme. If you can't compress it into a single sentence that's not a run-on, then leave it out. You can toss in a tiny historical note if applicable - "it was [author]'s first published work", or "it was written as a direct reply to [something else]".
 * 2) a synopsis. For this, it helps to have read the WoF completely. If you haven't read it completely, you can still do a synopsis based on what you know... but a synopsis of the WoF is not essential for a Wikipedia article (pardon the pun).
 * 3) a Reception section. This is crucial. If you don't have a reception section, then you aren't showing notability.

What should a synopsis have?
"Eternity is listening to a small child tell you about a Really Neat Movie" – (unknown)

My earlier comment about how "essential" wasn't intended to be a pun is because you must be able to boil the story down to its barest essence. Skip the amazing fascinating details, the scene-by-scene recap, the list of characters.

Here's an example of how I did it wrong, and how later I did it right.

The first version is five paragraphs. The second version is three sentences. The crucial points are present in both versions. You can tell they're crucial because the story doesn't make any sense if you leave any of them out.

The first sentence represents the beginning of the story, the setting: mad scientist, wife, adultery, murder, intellectually unsatisfying, time machine, grandfather paradox.

The middle of the story is represented by "nothing has changed" and "tries to change history by lots of murders".

Finally, the end of the story is "time isn't what he thought it was".

All the other details are unnecessary. Yes, it's interesting to know who else Hassell murdered, or how quickly he was able to build the time machine, or the precise nature of Hassell's fate and how it's connected to the True Nature Of Time... but that's what reading the story is for. The one extra detail I've included is to explain where the title comes from; this is only relevant for WoFs that have cleverly obscure titles (examples: the title of the novel Year Zero is explained, but the title of the short story "Bridesicle" is not).

Reception
This is even more important than the synopsis. First: has the WoF won any major awards? Has it been shortlisted? Note that "nominated" is not the same as "shortlisted". If it has, then include those. It won the ABC award for (year), and was shortlisted for the XYZ award for (year).

Next, reviews. Has it been commented on in a reliable source? A major periodical or media source? Goodreads doesn't count. Aggregators don't count. Random people's blogs don't count. Other authors may count, if they themselves meet notability criteria. Quote excerpts from those reviews: George Critic thought it was "fascinating" and "a joy to behold", but Vanessa Opinions felt it "did not live up to its potential". Iff any of those reviewers or critics commented about the meaning, the symbolism, etc, then you can quote them. Otherwise, it's your own idea and that's not allowed.