Talk:The Far Side of the World

Plot summary

@Prairieplant: You recently reverted my edit of the plot summary, stating, "Plot summary already at edge of best length. Extra detail accurate, but not crucial" as your rational. WP:NOVELPLOT gives a "best length" in paragraphs, not words, and as I didn't add any paragraphs I'm curious how my edit changed the "best length" condition of the summary. As to the information being "not crucial", I would argue that it is at least as crucial as:

• Mr Yarrow will rephrase the report to make the results clearer to the Admiralty.
• Aubrey dines with Laura Fielding and her husband, Lieutenant Fielding, who is now completely satisfied that his wife is true to him and thanks Aubrey for his kindness to her in bringing her from Malta to Gibraltar (though it is Maturin who is responsible for her being on the ship, having saved her from two assassins and brought her aboard to escape).
• Mr Allen negotiates with the agent for the whaler in Valparaiso, where the American prisoners are left ashore.

So I'm wondering what your standard for "crucial" information is? From my perspective the subplot about the Norfolks' lie that the war is over is actually quite crucial to understanding what happens on the island. nerdgoonrant (talk) 17:14, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Nerdgoonrant Sorry if I offended you. The plot summary is not the best possible summary, to be sure. It does run a bit long. This has a summary of various guides to length https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_write_a_plot_summary#Length . I think sometime back 800 words was the upper end of acceptable and the number that sticks in my mind. Now they say 700 words. The summary as it stands is over 800 words. My view is that edits to a summary already too long, ought to make the summary more concise, not longer. The apparent peace with Laura Fielding and her husband is important to link this novel to the prior novel and to a later novel. The mention of the improved relationship with Admiral Ives (Yarrow is clerk to Ives) is in contrast to the prior novel, where Ives made Aubrey's life difficult. The back and forth about whether the war of 1812 was still on does not seem important to me for this summary, though it was good reading, because Aubrey made the decision to take them prisoner, regardless of what was said earlier as part of their initial meeting. Negotiating for the whaler is important as they shed those American prisoners. Me, I love the interlude with the tough Polynesian women, but is it crucial? Except for text on Mrs Fielding, you may well be right that those items are not crucial. I do not know. If so, delete them, but do not add more text to fill a non-existent hole. The real guide for me is not to make a too-long summary yet longer; hard choices must be made as to what conveys the flavor and the flow of this novel. Does that help at all? --Prairieplant (talk) 08:26, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

It would be better to reduce the length than to add more detail. As the guidelines say, "While longer descriptions may appear to provide more data to the reader, a more concise summary may in fact be more informative as it highlights the most important elements. By focusing the reader's attention on the larger structures of a plot, without drowning it in trivial detail, a shorter summary can often help the reader to understand a work much better than an overlong one". --MichaelMaggs (talk) 08:44, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

@Prairieplant:and @MichaelMaggs: Thank you both for taking time to respond. As a new editor I really am trying to wrap my around how things work here, and to avoid unrealistic expectations, and therefore unnecessary disagreements. What I take from both WP:NOVELPLOT and WP:PLOTSUMMARIZE (because they both state it explicitly) is that there are actually no fixed limits. The limit of 700 words is quoted from a recommendation for feature films and even there they make it clear that complicated plots may require more words. Novels by their very nature can contain far more plot than a feature film, so using the 700 word limit seems unrealistic. As I've said, I'm new in these parts, and I tend to rely on the actual policy/advice points as written. If there's a general unwritten understanding among experienced editors that differs from the written guidelines, then someone someone should update the guideline documents. What I'm saying is, my reading of the guidelines doesn't fill me with the abhorrence of length you both clearly share, and I'm wondering where it comes from? As a collaborative enterprise, how does my belief that I'm including important plot information interact with your collective belief that keeping the length down is of paramount importance?

As you both know, Obrien's novels can be very plot heavy, so I would expect that some of his summaries might run a little longer than usual without it being a really big deal. My litmus test for deciding what may or may not be suitable for inclusion in a plot synopsis is, "does it help explain something else in the story which would otherwise be hard to understand?" The information about the Norfolks' lie about the war being over answers the question, "How is it possible that two ships companies from warring nations coexisted on the island without attacking each other?" So I think it makes sense to include it even if it pushes the length a bit. Of course it can't help but be subjective. The simple fact that I thought of it makes it seem important to me. I'm not concerned about whether or not it gets included in the summary, I'm more interested in learning about the unwritten nature of the rule being invoked here. Many thanks, nerdgoonrant (talk) 20:49, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi Nerdgoonrant, thanks for the thoughtful response. You are quite right that there are no fixed limits on the length of plot summaries. The guidelines are pretty vague, and so far as I'm aware there isn't any Wikipedia-wide 'unwritten understanding' beyond what is stated there. My own view is that where a longer summary is required to set out all the essential elements of a plot, it shouldn't be objectionable on the grounds of length alone. I personally don't find the reference in the guidelines to a paragraph count very helpful at all; I suspect that may in this case have simply encouraged the creation of longer and longer paragraphs.

The current O'Brian plot summaries tend to be of excessive length not because the length is needed to include all the essential plot elements, but because the majority of them include a lot of entirely peripheral and sometimes trivial material. And even then, some still leave out important plot elements, as you have noted. Many summaries have got longer and longer in recent years as a variety of editors each add 'just one more fact' that has struck them while reading the books. The extent of minor detail in almost every case obscures the larger structures of the plot, and prevents the reader understanding the work as a whole. The summaries ought to be both interesting and encyclopedically useful to wiki readers who have not yet read the books, whereas at present it is nigh-on impossible to get any feeling at all for the books from the summaries.

So, to go back to your specific query, I entirely agree with you that it's right to include additional plot elements, where those are essential (and some are essential not because they are necessarily important to that particular novel but because they become important later on in the sequence). But to avoid simply increasing the length of the summaries without limit, it would be good where you can to do a little light editing and to take the opportunity to trim out non-essential material at the same time that you are adding something essential. All the best, MichaelMaggs (talk) 12:59, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Hey MichaelMaggs, thank you for your thoughtful response. I was thinking about what I'd written yesterday, and came to the realization last night that part of the "unwritten rule" I was thinking about is actually simply experience. Having read lots and lots of plot summaries and developed a feel for what makes a good one. My standard of comparison is at present pretty limited. I do agree that the Aubrey-Maturin summaries (those I have read) are on the "chock-full" side, and consequently harder to follow. I can imagine the frustration of watching the creeping incrementalism of "oh, just this one more important bit" being added on ad infinitum. Responses from experienced editors are truly helpful in trying to get the big picture of what's going on here in a historical context, and the variety of things that can be considered improvement. Things I will keep in mind going forward. Thanks again, nerdgoonrant (talk) 16:42, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

You may not have been here for years, yet, but the way you're engaging with other editors and working collaboratively is very good sign indeed. All the best for a Merry Christmas! --MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:09, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! And a Merry Christmas to you! nerdgoonrant (talk) 17:14, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Nerdgoonrant You might be interested to read the plan for improving all the articles about the novels in the Aubrey Maturin series at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Master_and_Commander#Aubrey-Maturin_novels_-_planned_improvement_project . We reached agreement, implementation comes more slowly. Ditto to all MichaelMaggs said, and Greetings of the Season to you also. --Prairieplant (talk) 11:54, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes indeed, very slowly. But January seems a good time to get started on this. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 12:40, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Prairieplant, season's Greetings to you! That certainly is a pretty comprehensive list. I will be happy to contribute in whatever way I can. Thanks to both of you again! nerdgoonrant (talk) 06:52, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

A review behind the pay wall of NY Times by John Bayley

If any editor has free access to the New York Times reviews, John Bayley did write a review of many of the books in this series together, including The Far Side of the World. The title is In Which We Serve, printed on 7 November 1991. I saw a couple of paragraphs, and think there is material in that article to include in this Wikipedia article. I found just one review so far, nothing from Kirkus Reviews or Publishers Weekly, though Norton quoted Publishers Weekly on this novel. --Prairieplant (talk) 20:20, 14 September 2017 (UTC)