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Revision as of 03:41, 18 March 2008

Novels Stub‑class Low‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Novels, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to novels, novellas, novelettes and short stories on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and contribute to the general Project discussion to talk over new ideas and suggestions.NovelsWikipedia:WikiProject NovelsTemplate:WikiProject Novelsnovel Stub This article has been rated as Stub-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. This article has been marked as needing an infobox.

Store killings

The article says

Hank frantically inquires about where she spent the money. He then goes to the store and kills the cashier who had served his wife.

This misses an element of the horror: a middle-aged female customer enters on business, and he has to kill her as well.
--Jerzy•t 05:18, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

In that regard, I deleted the comment about murder in a pre-meditated fashion. All of the deaths in both book and movie were capital murder, including Lou and Nancy. Self-defense is not a defense against the death penalty if you kill co-conspirators to cover your own participation in a crime. From the moment Pederson/Dwight Stephenson was killed, they were all first degree murder--and most were pre-meditated. ANY forethought is pre-meditation, and killing the witness to a murder is even more despicable. Confusing "innocent" with "guilty" victims here--but they're all victims. Lou would have been just as guilty if he'd killed Hank--just not as "sympathetic". In the book the clerk and the customer were "innocents" with no connection whatsoever to the original crimes, and perhaps were left out of the movie because of that. Hank in the movie did not just "commit some crimes"--he is a murderer--and there are no gray areas.--Buckboard 17:07, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Plot summary

I've trimmed the overlong plot summary. --Tony Sidaway 23:07, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Oops, looks like there has been an edit war over this. I've invoked an RFC to see what other editors think. --Tony Sidaway 22:53, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Per the MoS: A plot summary should avoid reproducing the work being discussed. Instead, it should summarise the work, touching on plot, important events, character developments etc. In a longer work, every conversation and event does not need to be mentioned. Size of the plot summary should be roughly proportional to the size of the plot. This is not always equivalent to the length of the work, since some plots are complex and dense while others are simple and straight-forward. The summary was too long, and didn't really 'summarise' the plot. The shorter version may be too short, but it's easy to expand upon, rather than reduce the and this happens and then this happens content of the too-long version to something readable. Ignore my comment on my edit summary about word limits, I was thinking of the fillum. Geoff B (talk) 09:44, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I see we're back to the 10 kilobyte synopsis on a 1.5 kilobyte stub.  :) --Tony Sidaway 16:25, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

This is a preposterous discussion. There are thousands of novels with detailed summaries and sypnosis' on Misplaced Pages and this is just one more. The shorter version doesn't need to be expanded upon because there already is a detailed version that informs the reader of the content of the novel. Alternatively, they could read a shorter one at the top of the page, but there is absolutely no reason whatsoever why the longer one shouldn't remain. --Drstrangelove57 —Preceding comment was added at 21:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I've noticed that you and Geoff B both seem to be involved in edit warring on this article, and on A Simple Plan (film). I would like you both to stop, please. There's no need for that. Meanwhile let's see if some relatively uninvolved people are willing to give their opinions. --Tony Sidaway 23:10, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Certainly. Geoff B (talk) 23:54, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

RfC response: Before I answer, I want to state a couple guiding principles on plot summaries (1) They are designed to give a reader an overview of the movie (2) They are not designed to recreate the movie. A reader should know major plot events, and be generally familiar with the storyline, but their will and should be major gaps when it comes to details, motivations, nuance and other plot details. That said, this article's current plot summary is entirely too long. According to WP:FilmPlot, plot summaries should be between 400 and 700 words, and even extremely involved, long and/or complicated films should not exceed 900 words under any circumstances. I agree with this estimation and feel that it is actually pretty generous. Take the film Ocean's Eleven, which is pretty complicated. Its plot section only has a word-count of 732. I think the mistakes in the plot summary to A Simple Plan are exemplified in this portion:

The novel's main character is Hank Mitchell, a middle-class family-man-to-be who works as an accountant. One day Hank goes to visit his father's grave, accompanied by: Jacob Mitchell, Hank's shy and slow-witted elder brother; Lou, Jacob's drinking-buddy. Despite having less-than-fond memories (and therefore little respect) for their father, Jacob supplies his poorly-maintained and uncomfortable pickup truck for said excursion. En route, Jacob is cut off by a fox and veers his truck into a ditch, wrecking the shoddy vehicle.

This is too colorful (bordering on OR or even POV) and provides too much detail. A better phrasing follows:

The protagonist, Hank Mitchell, visits his father's grave with his slow-witted brother Jacob, and Jacob's drinking buddy. En route, a fox cuts in front of Jacob's truck and he veers into a ditch and wrecks.

Also, this section at the end is editorial and can be reduced to one sentence stating their remorse:

Hank and Sarah both feel as if this is punishment for their crimes. They are far worse off than they were before; Hank has become destitute, like his father, they will never be able to afford the things they want, and the guilt over their actions haunt them relentlessly througout their every moment. The novel ends as Hank laments his weakness, wondering how normal people such as himself could succumb to such great evil.

Rules of thumb (1) be careful to leave out interpretation; (2) Don't use five words where two will do, and (3) if you can understand the movie plot without it, leave it out.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 16:59, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Good points, except for two things:

1. This is a novel, not a film. 2. The end is not editorializing, because that's exactly how the novel ends. It is told in the first person and that is literally what Hank is talking about.

But I agree with you whole-heartedly about some points. Drstrangelove57 (talk) 17:21, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Break of the arbitrary kind

• The article needs some balance between plot and "out of universe" information. There is currently too much of the former, not enough of the latter. I'm thinking shorter plot summary and adding some sourced info. --Sturm 23:11, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

• Instead of relying on a MoS style guide, let's consult the governing policy:

  Misplaced Pages articles on published works (such as fictional stories) should contain real-world context and sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's development and historical significance, not solely a detailed summary of that work's plot.

  I think it's fair to say that a page in which there is only a detailed plot analysis, with little or no context and sourced analysis is an egregious violation of the policy. /Blaxthos ( t / c ) 23:22, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Conclusion

{{editprotected}} Please remove the massive in-universe "Detailed plot summary" section, per the general consensus from closed RFC above. Disclaimer: I removed the section once a while ago and participated in the discussion. /Blaxthos ( t / c ) 03:05, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

 Not done

My interpretation of the RfC above, and my knowledge of WP:PLOT, does not support this course of action. Misplaced Pages articles about books or films should have plot summaries. However, these should be of an appropriate length. Ten times the size of the rest of the article text is not an appropriate length.

My proposed remedy is fairly sweeping, but I hope it will prove effective. I have removed the entire plot summary from the article, and moved it to an unprotected subpage (Talk:A Simple Plan/Plot summary). I suggest that the editors who are familiar with this novel work to rewrite this summary into a more appropriate form, which will probably be about 1,500-2,000 bytes rather than 10,000. Once a suitable summary has been created, readd the {{editprotected}} template and ask for the summary to be restored to the article. In fact, once the summary has been decided on, the page will no longer need to be protected.

If any admin feels that my actions are too unilateral, I will not object to them being reversed. Non-admins who object to this solution should start a thread at WP:AN. Happy‑melon 18:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I would be happy to try and write something better, but since I'm still of the belief that deleting the whole thing is abusrd, perhaps Blaxthos or Strum or someone else who lobbied to take the summary down in the first place should volunteer for the task of rewriting the summary. Drstrangelove57 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 16:32, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm still at a loss here. My request was for the removal of the Detailed Plot Synopsis section, which by all accounts is entirely too long. I believe that the Plot Summary of one paragraph is appropriate given the overall length of this article... it certainly should not eclipse the real-world analysis and impact section. Hope this clears things up. /Blaxthos ( t / c ) 18:26, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Blaxthos, happy to see you could make it with your usual bogus excuses utilizing a labyrinthe interpretation of every obscure Misplaced Pages rule and petty power plays. Still absent with a good reason that the summary should be deleted, made all the more classy by the fact that you apparently haven't read the novel, and thus are demonstrably here simply to bully other editors. Glad you could make it.

Meanwhile, a perfectly good summary of the novel has been wiped out and no one wants to write a new one. I would volunteer, but seeing as I've no reason to believe that what I write won't simply be stomped out just so that some jerk can feel like a bigshot, I don't really want to bother. Drstrangelove57 (talk) 20:15, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Every other responding editor, including the closing admin, has expressed agreement that the plot summary should be concise and not overshadow the stated purpose of the article (including real-world analysis and impact). I'm unaware of any previous interaction you and I have had, Drstrangelove57, but if you would spend more energy learning our policies and guidelines than making personal attacks and not assuming good faith. If so many editors respond in the same way, maybe you're misunderstanding the policy or guideline. In either case, don't take things so personally. /Blaxthos ( t / c ) 03:41, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

• Stub-Class novel articles
• Low-importance novel articles
• Novel articles without infoboxes
• WikiProject Novels articles