Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Novels

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 focuses mainly on novels, but the principles apply equally to novellas and short stories.

Naming conventions

Main page: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)

For translated titles, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Titles § Translations.

• If a novel title is also the name of an article that is not about a novel, the novel article should be named Novel Title (novel). Disambiguation links should appear at the top of both pages.
• If two different novels by different authors have the same title, each article should be named Novel Title (AUTHORNAME novel).

Finding sources

A Wikipedia article should only exist if the subject has 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; there should be sourced external commentary on real-world topics such as themes, style, and reception.

Places to start

Google Scholar may turn up many good sources if you simply search for a novel title and author. However, some of these resources may not be fully accessible. If you have made at least 500 edits on Wikipedia via a registered account that is at least six months old, you can access the following databases through The Wikipedia Library:

• 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)

Your local library may also provide access to the above databases. In addition, the following resources may be available through your local library:

• MLA Bibliography (cites publications on literature and languages)
• Cambridge Companions and Norton Critical Editions. 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, see Wikipedia:Find your source.

Less reviewed or studied works

If little else turns up, you could look for book reviews written by respectable publications, such as Kirkus Review, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, USA Today, or The New York Times. Some newspapers have their reviews behind a paywall, so you might want to use a public library. For some genres, you can find more specialized reviews, for example in mystery writer or science fiction magazines. Be aware that a book publisher or author may have paid for a review. When using reviews, don't merely emphasize praise, but look for more complex reflections.

Comments by other prominent writers, particularly in the same genre, might also be worth noting. These opinions also have to be used carefully because these other authors may have connections to the writer, or may be competitors.

Finally, if fewer than three substantial sources cover the novel in some detail, the novel may not merit an article on Wikipedia. If there is an article about the author, the novel could be mentioned briefly there, but even an author is not always notable enough for a Wikipedia article. In some cases, a book series may warrant an article even if some of the individual books do not.

Article body

The following are the standard components of Wikipedia novel articles, though exact formats will vary. Note that the article body does not include the lead section, which you generally should not edit right away, as it should not contain any substantial details that are not in the article body. The article should be written from an out-of-universe perspective.

Plot

An article about a novel should include a concise plot summary which highlights the most important events and developments without attempting to follow every twist and turn of the story. A plot summary should be written in the narrative present tense. A summary for a full-length novel should be between 400 and 700 words. When a plot summary exceeds 700 words, look for things that can be trimmed without losing anything important. Very occasionally, there may be exceptional reasons that warrant a longer summary. If you believe you are working on such a case, be prepared to explain why on the talk page.

Before writing or expanding a plot summary, you will need a good knowledge of the novel itself, preferably from a recent reading or at least from a good source which discusses the novel in some detail. Because adaptations often make significant changes, a film or TV version must not be used as the basis for anything in the plot summary for a novel.

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 elsewhere in 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 part of a summary, but if used they should be cited using inline citations.

A plot summary should describe the plot in its entirety, including all major plot points, significant twists, and the ending. Accordingly, and as explained in the spoiler guideline, spoilers are present in novel articles as a matter of course. Spoiler warnings are never used on Wikipedia, for the reasons set out in the no disclaimers guideline.

Principal characters

In 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 the principal characters, with a sentence or two about each. In other cases, this may take the form of regular prose. Either way, do not include every peripheral character, or every detail about a major character; this is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Such a section is sometimes titled Principal characters, to remind editors to think twice before adding a character.

Major themes

Themes are often the most interesting aspect of a story. However, an exploration of themes should not be based on your own original thought. Rather, it should reflect the assessment of literary scholars and historians. If you cannot find a source for commentary on themes, do not add such commentary.

Style

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 this particular novel. 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. Once again, this should be based on the best sources you can find.

Background

Include 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. 'Background' should not be confused with "Setting"; think in terms of the real world context and / or origins of the novel.

Publication history

A Publication history section should cover magazine serialisations (many of Charles Dickens' novels), changes by the author (Maria Edgeworth's Belinda), changes due to later controversy (Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), or re-issues of commercial or reputational significance (Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander). Lists of dates and publishers of unremarkable re-issues, translations and so on should be avoided. If there are no notable differences between editions, a Publication history section is not needed. Any significant details about the original publication could likely fit into the Background section.

Reception

A 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 be covered. For cult novels, an explanation of how the "cult" label developed would also be appropriate, if it can be reliably sourced. Sales figures should be mentioned only if there is an independent reliable source for this information.

Adaptations

If the novel has been adapted for film, television, theatre, or other dramatic media, an Adaptations section could note any such adaptation that is covered by at least one reliable source. If a particular adaptation has received significant coverage in multiple reliable sources, it may be sufficiently notable for its own individual article. Many articles about novels include details of later adaptations, and occasionally the novel itself may be a novelisation of an earlier work. In either case, significant differences between the novel and the other work — along with the reasons for the changes and the reactions to them — can be addressed in a separate section, provided the differences are discussed in external secondary sources. Without such sources, analysing or listing the differences between the respective plots of the novel and the other work constitutes original research and should be avoided.

Footnotes and references

All Wikipedia article content must be verifiable. This usually means citing sources, which typically appear as footnotes. If you are unsure of how to use internet links as references, <ref>url</ref> is adequate. Also provide the date on which you accessed the site, so that should the content disappear from that site or the link cease to function (a danger in using web sources), the information can be checked via the Wayback Machine.

Lead section

The lead section should summarize the article as a whole, serving as a stand-alone version for those who don't bother to read past it. When developing an article, focus on the body; when that is substantially complete, try to align the lead with it. Leads tend to be between two and four paragraphs, depending on the size of the article body.

Infobox

To Kill a Mockingbird

Author	Harper Lee
Language	English
Genre	Southern Gothic Bildungsroman
Published	July 11, 1960
Publisher	J. B. Lippincott & Co.
Publication place	United States
Pages	281

An infobox is normally included. The standard option for novels is Template:Infobox book, though Template:Infobox novella or Template:Infobox short story may be used for shorter works of fiction. For poems, including epic poems, Template:Infobox poem is available. For reference, an example of the infobox for the novel To Kill a Mockingbird is shown on the right.

Each template includes a wide range of parameter fields, with instructions available on the corresponding template page (accessible by clicking the template name above). Only fields that are relevant to the novel and are sufficiently noteworthy to merit inclusion in the article should be completed.

Images

If there are multiple editions of a book, there may be multiple covers. The image displayed at the top of the article should be the most significant cover historically for that book; often this is the first edition cover, but occasionally it is not, if a later edition is better known. Images that are still in copyright may be uploaded only as non-free content, which means that you will need to give a rationale for why the cover is being used. In the example infobox displayed here, the image has been removed, as Wikipedia fair use policy only allows fair use images in the article namespace, or on the file description page itself.

Finding and uploading an image. Covers can be found at various sites, including Amazon.com ([1]) and Amazon.co.uk ([2]). Google Images might also yield covers. Novels published before the nineteenth century typically did not have visually standardized covers, but a reproduction of the title page can be a good alternative. These title pages can often be found in the Internet Archive.

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 description page, add a short description of the image (e.g. "A book cover for NovelTitle."), and an image copyright tag:
  • If the cover image is still under copyright, {{Non-free use rationale book cover}} and {{Non-free book cover}} should both be on the file description page.
• On the image line of the infobox template, insert the image's filename. A short description can be included in the field image caption. The default image size is 220 pixels.

e.g. sample input – vary text used to suit image used

image = NovelTitle.jpg

image_caption = First edition cover

Genre

The genre field is optional, as some novels don't neatly fit into any particular category. A list of genres can be found on the main project page.

Publication date

This should be the date the novel was first published in book form (not the date of any earlier serialization). If the novel was first written in a non-English language (and only then!), add the english_pub_date field for date of first English-language publication.

Series, preceded_by, and followed_by

The series, preceded_by, and followed_by fields in Template:Infobox book are intended for novels that are part of a series (including sequels). As outlined in the template instructions, these fields should not be used for standalone books or to indicate a chronological connection between unrelated works. The series field should include a link to the Wikipedia article about the series, while the preceded_by, and followed_by fields should link to the corresponding novels within the series. For standalone novels, all three fields should remain blank.

Trivia

Do not create a Trivia or Miscellanea section. If one already exists, it should be regarded as temporary, until editors sort out what can be integrated into other sections and what should be removed. A collection of random facts may create a sense of a "fan site" rather than an encyclopedia article.

Lists

Once an article has been created for a novel, it can be entered into any applicable lists.

Categories

Categories are placed at the bottom. At a minimum, categories for the year and country of origin should be included. Any genre category the novel clearly fits into should be included. It is best to keep the categories 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:

• Category:2007 novels
• Category:American novels
• Category:Comedy novels

Prolific writers may have their own categories. For example:

• Category:Novels by Charles Dickens
• Category:Short stories by Isaac Asimov
• Category:Short story collections by Philip K. Dick

See also

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction
• Wikipedia:How to write a plot summary – a how-to guide