Have a question about how the TVTropes wiki works? No one knows this community better than the people in it, so ask away! Ask the Tropers is the page you come to when you have a question burning in your brain and the support pages didn't help.
It's not for everything, though. For a list of all the resources for your questions, click here. You can also go to this Directory thread
for ongoing cleanup projects.
Those recaps almost go line-by-line. Condensing them is the best way to go.
Edited by DustSnitch
Yes, a recap isn't really supposed to be a detailed synopsis, or even worse, a line-by-line transcript.
Some recap pages do a Short Summary first and then a Long Summary second.
RLL
I've wanted those chopped for ages.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
I wrote two possible summaries for the first recap here. One of them is a long summary while the other one is a single paragraph.
Edited by DustSnitch
Recaps will host synopses thanks to an ill advised merger years ago.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
A synopsis is a condensed description of any given narrative. It should never, ever be a frame-by-frame retelling that describes every single scene of the episode in detail.
Frankly, every recap/synopsis that delves into such detailed TLDR territory is terrible writing and should be removed. Telling us that the Gaang is deliberating on something and the contents of said deliberation is useful. The fact that somebody took a seat by kicking a chair is not. This is not a novelization of the episode. It is a summary.
"If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - Fighteer
There's nothing wrong with a recap that's a number of paragraphs long if a lot of important plot stuff happens, but these are beyond excessive in length with tons of superfluous details.
DustSnitch's mega condensed version is a little too condensed for my liking, but it's a huge improvement for the first recap.
Edited by Karxrida If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
Jesus.
I opened one and those seem more like entire play-by-plays of the episodes than they do plot summaries. The art of being concise with summaries seems to have been lost on the editor responsible.
Not relevant to the question at hand, but in large part the idea that a recap has to be a shot-by-shot retelling of the entire episode can be laid squarely at the feet of (the now-defunct) Television Without Pity. Their recaps were so detailed that you didn't even have to watch the episode — even for things are complex as West Wing, CSI and Firefly. Even things like American Idol had recaps running to 20 or more pages. Per episode.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
I am of the opinion that long, detailed retellings of episodes, issues, etc., are the province of dedicated wikis, not TV Tropes.
I think a decent synopsis or recap that touches on all main events, hangs together well, and is coherently written is fine for this site.
Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. -Terry Pratchett
Preference seems to be leaning to a synopsis which hits all the beats of the episode, but not in ludicrous detail. I tried my hand at doing a recap that took up seven paragraphs with an average of 3.5 sentences.
"Sozin's Comet Part 1" Recap
The episode opens with Aang practicing Firebending with Zuko until Katara leads the gang down to the beach for a break. They try to ignore their problems and have a good time, only for Zuko to start attacking Aang. He chases the Avatar from the beach, up a hill, and into the beach house, only for Aang to get mad and blow Zuko out a window. Beaten, Zuko explains that he attacked Aang to get him ready for his fight with the Fire Lord in three days, since that's when Sozin's Comet will arrive. After hearing from the others that they planned to fight the Fire Lord after the Comet had left, Zuko informs them that the Fire Lord intends to use the power from Sozin's Comet to burn down the entire Earth Kingdom. Horrified, Aang questions himself, but is quickly reassured by the solidarity of his friends.
Some time later, Zuko begins to instruct Aang on how to redirect lightning, a lethal technique. It becomes clear that if Aang wants to survive the Fire Lord's lightning, he'll have to shoot it back and kill him. Aang says that he'll be willing to kill, but he seems very downcast as he says it.
A few hours later, the entire team practices an assault on the Fire Lord. Everything goes well until Aang refuses to strike the dummy standing in for the Fire Lord, unwilling to kill even the proxy of a human. At nighttime, Katara unwittingly shows the gang a baby picture of the Fire Lord, giving Aang more reason not to kill him. Sokka tries to crack a joke about it, but it only makes Aang upset and he leaves. While meditating to calm his nerves, a mysterious island appears by the coast, accompanied by chanting that seems to pull Aang into a trance that pulls him towards the island, with Momo following him.
The next morning, the rest of the gang is about ready to leave, when they notice Aang is nowhere to be seen. They search the house, the coast, and the nearby town, but they find no sign of him anywhere... or of the mysterious island the audience saw. With only two days until Sozin's Comet, Zuko takes charge and leads Team Avatar to the Earth Kingdom to get an expert's opinion on the Avatar's location.
The view changes to show the harbor plaza at the Fire Nation capital. The Fire Lord, standing in front of a massive army of Fire Nation soldiers, informs Princess Azula that he will personally lead the assault on the Earth Kingdom. From this day forth, Azula will be the Fire Lord, while Ozai will rebuild the Earth Kingdom from it's ashes as the newly crowned ruler of the world, the first Phoenix King.
Cut to Zuko leading the gang into an Earth Kingdom bar, where they find June, the bounty hunter from "Bato of the Water Tribe." Zuko explains that June's shirshu can track Aang's scent anywhere in the world, saying "It's the one shot we have of finding him."
Meanwhile, Aang and Momo are asleep in a forest. Aang stirs and begins to wake up. He breaks off in surprise as he sees he's on a the forest island, which is now in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight.
That's FAR BETTER than the wall of text that's on the page now.
Okay, I'll paste it in now.
Seems those recaps have been that long since before records on those pages begin - at least 2012, anyway. The recap on this page for the last episode before the final story arc, however... is just as long and was only made such within the last few months. Someone more familiar with the series than I (i.e., familiar with it at all) may want to pare that one down as well (seems unfair to get DustSnitch to do that one AND the three that sparked this ATT thread).
The first three recaps of Sozin's Comet are very, very long summaries to the point that I go TL;DR.