Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Novels
This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page. |
Manual of Style (MoS) |
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This page sets out the Wikipedia guidelines covering articles on individual works of literary fiction. These guidelines supplement the broader guidelines for coverage of fiction, which should also be followed. For brevity, this page assumes that the work being discussed is a novel, but it applies equally to all works of literary fiction: novels, novellas and short stories.
Naming conventions
edit- If a non-novel article already exists with the name of the novel that you are trying to create an article for, disambiguate and use (novel) in the title: Novel Title (novel).
- If two different novels by different authors have the same title, each article should be named Novel Title (AUTHORNAME novel).
Finding sources
editBecause of Wikipedia's notability and verifiability requirements, it's important to make sure that there is substantial research to support your work on the Wikipedia article. General notability requirements for Wikipedia require significant coverage in reliable secondary sources with a reputation for editorial control. An article on a novel should never consist solely of a plot summary, as without the inclusion of sourced external commentary there is no opportunity to discuss substantive real-world topics such as themes, style and reception. (For advice on writing sections on these topics, see the discussion below.)
Places to start
editIf you have been active on Wikipedia for six months and have 500 edits, we recommend the following databases available through The Wikipedia Library (and many public libraries and university libraries):
- WP:JSTOR (full-text articles on literature and history)
- WP:Project MUSE (full-text articles on literature and history)
- WP:EBSCO (assortment of academic and periodical literature)
- WP:Gale (assortment of academic and periodical literature)
Other useful database/sources of research, that may be available through your local library:
- MLA Bibliography (cites publications on literature and languages)
- For more for a "classic" author, the Cambridge Companion, or if it's a "classic" work, a Norton Critical Edition for that work. Both series have a number of volumes, and provide extensive introductions to the authors and works within their fields.
- ProQuest's Literature Online
If your local library doesn't have these works available, we suggest using the process documented at Wikipedia:Find your source to find the source.
Tips for finding criticism about less reviewed or studied works
editIf the above resources yield nothing, try these methods:
- Scholarly sources on the genre itself. Even if such sources only mention the novel briefly, they might at least establish that the novel is part of a larger literary tradition, such as the mystery novel or the romance novel.
- Book reviews written by respectable publications in the novel's genre. The point is to try to find sources who are experts in the field of that particular novel. Sometimes you can find this information in a general search with the novel's title in Kirkus Review, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, USA Today, The New York Times or other newspaper review. Some newspapers have their reviews behind a paywall, so perform the search at a public library to avoid the need for a subscription to every newspaper with good book reviews. For some genres, like mysteries or historical fiction, you can find more specialized reviews that would be more interesting to read and have more nuanced opinions, for example in mystery writer or science fiction magazines.
- It's important to be careful about choosing and using reviews: there is often a money trail that leads straight back to the publishers themselves (many blog reviewers are commissioned for their reviews). When using reviews, don't merely emphasize praise, but look for more complex reflections on themes, topics, style and the publishing context.
- Comments by other writers, particularly in the same genre. These opinions also have to be used carefully because these other authors may have personal or financial links to the writer, or may be competitors.
- Sales figures from journals and magazines who track that sort of thing, not from the publishers themselves. Publishers have an investment in boosting their numbers. One should always try to find independent verification of numbers like that (in this sense, you have to think like a journalist – you need two independent sources).
Finally, if there are fewer than three substantial sources that specifically cover the novel, you might consider not creating an article on the novel itself. Instead, check to see whether there is an article on the author, and if so, whether the novel is mentioned. If the novel is part of a series, the series may be notable enough for an article even if the individual book is not.
Article body
editThe following are the standard components of Wikipedia novel articles. An infobox can be placed at the head of a novel article; for more details on the content and style of the box, see below.
Lead section
editThe lead should summarize the article as a whole (WP:LEAD), thus the structure and content of your article should be reflected in the lead of the article. Leads tend to average between 2–4 paragraphs, depending on the size of the article.
Plot
editAn article about a novel should include a concise plot summary touching on important events, character developments etc, without attempting to follow every twist and turn of the story. Regardless of the length of the novel, a complex and dense plot will need a longer summary than a simple and straightforward one. 400 to 700 words are usually sufficient. Plots over 700 words may be challenged for length. When editing a plot summary, try to keep it under 700 words; chances are that something can be shortened.
A novel is a primary source for its own plot summary, provided the novel is publicly available. There is usually no need to explicitly cite the novel as a reference, but the summary must accurately reflect the plot of the novel. Publication details should be included within the article, perhaps in an infobox. In general a plot summary should not stray into interpretation or commentary, but anything that is not purely descriptive requires a secondary source. Direct quotes from the novel are not usually required as part of a summary, but if used then they should be cited using inline citations.
Plot summaries very often contain spoilers. That is quite normal, and is in line with the spoiler content guidelines and Wikipedia's content disclaimer. Spoilers are no different from any other content and should not be deleted solely because they are spoilers.
Characters
editIn most cases, no specific section on characters is needed. However, if a finely crafted plot summary cannot capture this aspect of a story, a Characters section may be warranted. Sometimes this will be a bullet-point list of characters, with a sentence or two about each. In other cases, this may take the form of regular prose. Either way, there is no need to include every minor character, or every detail about a major character; this is not an indiscriminate collection of information.
Major themes
editThemes are often the most interesting aspect of a story. However, an exploration of themes should not be based on one's own original thought. Rather, it should reflect the consensus of literary scholars and historians. For so-called "classic" texts, many such sources are likely available, but it may take some time to read through them. You can use the Google Scholar to find citations for these publications online. Sometimes you won't be able to find a full-text version of a source through Google Scholar, but you may be able to find a citation that you can dig deeper into using the strategies listed at "Wikipedia:Find your source". If you cannot find a source for commentary on themes, do not add such commentary.
Style
editLike the "Themes" section, this section should be based on as much research as you can do and should rely on the same sorts of sources – literary critics and historians, if possible, and book reviews and other writers' comments if not.
This section should lay out the writing styles employed by the author. For example, if the novel is an epistolary novel, there should be an explanation of that style and how it works specifically in the novel being discussed on the page. Also, any notable features of the writer's style should be spelled out. Virginia Woolf's unique narrative voice, Thomas Pynchon's postmodernist tendencies, and Jane Austen's use of free indirect discourse are examples of the kind of stylistic elements that have been extensively discussed by scholars and merit mention on any page about these authors' novels.
Background
editInclude here a history of the novel's writing and development. For example, did the author use a 'real life' story to shape the plot? Did the author model a character on a 'real life' person? Did the author use another novel as a model? Is this novel in some sense a sequel to a previous work? None of these can be speculative. The 'background' section must report the writings of significant and reliable sources. For an example of Featured articles with a 'background' section see The Halo Graphic Novel or The World Without Us. 'Background' should not be confused with "Setting"; think in terms of the real world context and / or origins of the novel.
Publication history
editRelying on research (see below), you should briefly outline the publication history of the novel ONLY if there is interesting information to relate. For example, some novels, such as William Godwin's Caleb Williams, were published with two different endings. Some novels were first published serially and then later published as bound books; this is the case with many of Charles Dickens' novels, for example. Maria Edgeworth altered significant elements of one of the marriage plots of her novel Belinda in response to criticism after the first edition was published. Other novels have been censored or altered by later editors. If there are no particularly interesting details to relate, try to work the basic facts of the novel's first publication into the article at some point. If both sections are short, it may be appropriate to merge Background and Publication history.
Reception
editA "Reception" section should analyze how the novel was received by professional reviewers or influential opinion-makers. (Quotes from users on Amazon.com and blogs do not count, as these are self-published.) If the novel was written long ago, understanding its position in its own society and in later literary and cultural traditions is crucial. The public reaction to the novel should also be covered. Sales figures can help indicate this, but do not rely exclusively on reviews and sales figures. Since reading habits were different in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, it is helpful to include descriptions of readers' responses to the novel as well as descriptions of how the novel was read. For a good example of this, see the "Style" section of Uncle Tom's Cabin, which explains the "sentimental" style of the novel and how readers responded at the time. Such descriptions help the reader understand the novel within its historical and social context. If the novel is a cult novel, an explanation of how the "cult" label developed would also be appropriate, if it can be reliably sourced.
Adaptations
editThe adaptation section should detail any notable information about the novel's adaption into dramatic media, including films, TV miniseries, Broadway shows, etc. If this information is extensive, consider creating an entirely separate article for this information, such as "[Novel] in popular culture".
To conform to minimal notability standards, each entry might have at least one reliable source confirming the link between the novel and the adaptation. If multiple, non-trivial, reliable sources can be found, the adaptation may be sufficiently notable to be worthy of an article to itself.
Footnotes and references
editAll Wikipedia article content must be verifiable. This usually means citing sources. A variety of methods to present your references is available at Citing sources:Style and how-to as well as an inline citations/footnoting system at Help:Footnotes. If you are unsure of how to use internet links as references, simply inserting the URL into square brackets at the end of the corresponding text (e.g. [http://www.loc.gov/] becomes [1]) is an adequate form of referencing the web; you must also provide the date on which you accessed the site so that should the information disappear from that site or the link cease to function (a danger in using web sources), a user wanting to use the Wayback Machine to verify your information can do so.
Other considerations
editInfobox
editAuthor | Patrick O'Brian |
---|---|
Cover artist | Geoff Hunt |
Language | English |
Series | Aubrey–Maturin series |
Genre | Historical novel |
Publisher | Harper Collins |
Publication date | 1978 |
Publication place | United Kingdom |
Media type | Print (hardback and paperback) and audio book (cassette, CD) |
Pages | 416 (first edition, hardback) |
ISBN | 0123456789 (first edition, hardback) |
Preceded by | The Mauritius Command |
Followed by | The Fortune of War |
An infobox should usually be included. Not all fields in the infobox need to be filled, if the information is unavailable or the field is not applicable to the novel.
The table to the right is the Infobox book template for Desolation Island. Note that the image has been removed, as Wikipedia fair use policy prohibits the use of fair use images outside the article namespace. Clicking edit on the right will enable you to view and copy the source text to use on novel articles. If you have any questions or problems with this table, you can discuss them at Template talk:Infobox book.
The parameters for the infobox can be found at Template:Infobox book.
A companion infobox for "novelettes" and "short stories" can be found at Template:Infobox short story.
Images
editThe image presented in the table should be the most significant cover historically for that book; often this is the first edition, but occasionally it is not. For example, sometimes authors make drastic revisions to texts and later editions are considered to be the "preferred" edition. The most important factor in choosing an illustration for your infobox is knowledge and reasoning: do you know why you are choosing that image and can you justify it? Remember also, that still copyrighted images can only be uploaded as non-free content, which means that you have to give a rationale for why the cover is being used.
Finding and uploading an image Covers can be found at various sites, including Amazon.com ([2]) and Amazon.co.uk ([3]). Novels published during the seventeenth century in Britain can be found at Early English Books Online (EEBO – by subscription only) and novels published during the eighteenth century in English can be found at Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO – by subscription only). Many images can also be found at google images for older texts.
Once you have found a suitable image:
- Save it to your hard drive as a JPEG or PNG file. See preparing images for upload.
- Upload it to the wiki at Special:Upload. See uploading images.
- On the file's description page, add a short description of the image (e.g. "A book cover for NovelTitle."), and an image copyright tag:
{{Non-free book cover}}
for such novels, novellas, novelettes or short stories.
- On the image line of the template, insert the image's filename. A short description can be included in the field image caption. The image size in the infobox is currently set to 200 pixels.
- e.g. sample input – vary text used to suit image used
- image = NovelTitle.jpg
- image_caption = First edition cover
Genre
editChoose a genre from the list available to link to which can be found on the main project page. You are not required to fill in the genre field. Genres are often debatable and can lead to anachronistic labeling. For example, labeling Robinson Crusoe a novel is highly suspect, for (it can be argued) the genre of the novel itself had not fully formed at that point, and Daniel Defoe would not have identified his text as a novel. You may consider leaving this field blank if no suitable genre is among the choices listed.
Publication dates
edit- The novel's earliest release, or publication in book form; if it was previously serialized, do not give the date of serialization. If not formally published, use the date written; this would be highly unusual for writing of notability.
- Use the release date in the country of origin for the novel.
- If the novel has been translated from a non-English language (and only then!), add the english_pub_date for date of first translated publication.
Do not include the following in infoboxes (although they can be included in a separate section in the main body of the article):
- Release dates for every country in the world.
Media type
editRecord only the media types in which the novel was originally available. For example, eighteenth-century novels were never published in "hardback and paperback" nor in audiobook so it is inappropriate to list those print subtypes.
- Print sub-types (Hardback, Paperback, Periodical)
- AudioBook sub-types (Audio CD, Cassette)
- e-Book sub-types
Preceded and followed by
editThese fields should be included only for the novels that are written as part of a series or sequence. Then the titles of the novel prior and the novel subsequent in the series should be placed in each parameter. For standalone novels, these parameters should be left blank.
Trivia
editTrivia sections should be dealt with in accordance with WP:TRIVIA. They create a sense of a "fan site" in what might otherwise be a respectable encyclopedia entry. As such, information that might be placed in a Trivia section should be integrated into the body of the article.
Lists
editOnce an article has been created for a novel, it can be entered into a number of lists to allow easier browsing for viewers. All novels should be included in the Lists of books article. Each novel can be included in lists based on the alphabet, year, language, genre, country, etc. that a novel can be included in.
Categories
editThe article should include categories at the bottom. At a minimum, year, country and genre categories should be included. It is best to keep them in alphabetical order for easier browsing. For example, you would add the following to the bottom of a page for an American comedy novel that came out in 2007:
For the novels of more significant novelists you could add the appropriate "Novels by AuthorName" category: