NaNo 4328 / 50,000
Recap/Synopsis/Summary/Digest/Rundown/Abridgment/Breviary/Outline/Run-through
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
Sorry, what exactly do you mean by this?
Lost in Space
You are correct that a Recap should be a summary of the plot, not a scene-by-scene, frame-by-frame retelling.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Theon is home.
A related question on recaps: is it necessary to create a recap page for each episode, or can it be done on a season-by-season basis with a paragraph breakdown for each episode? According to SoYouWantTo.Recap this seems permissible, but I haven't seen it done this way before.
Edited by mahidevrans on Feb 28th 2019 at 12:10:17 PM
Lost in Space
Either way is fine. If you have episode pages with individual trope lists, it makes sense to put the plot recap there as well.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
A general episode summary would be good. Just don't make it frame by frame like Recap.Sonic Boom S 2 E 52 Eggman The Video Game Part 2 The End Of The World.
The Protomen enhanced my life.
It was discussed in This
thread and the mod decision was made to prune overlong descriptions on recap pages. My personal judgement is anything longer than a screen-full of text in standard view falls into this range.
I'm on the fence about this. On the one hand, I never write recap descriptions longer than a sentence or two, and that's what most recap pages use. On the other hand, I've seen some series where the recap pages are well-curated with long descriptions, carefully interspersed with quotes to make it more interesting.
What is the problem with long recap descriptions? That's not me being snarky, I am genuinely asking, because I feel like I'm missing something super obvious. I mean, unless you're talking about copy/pasting from another site, which is of course never allowed.
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
If the recap is too detailed, we run the risk of violating copyright. This even applies to recaping television episodes because we could be accused of making a Novelization of the work.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
Well, that's unfortunate. Wish there was a way to keep all the hard work, but nothing comes to mind.
So, as a random example: Recap.Doctor Who S 31 E 11 The Lodger. What would be the best way to cut that down?
We are not here to show off/hone the summary skills of our tropers but to collect tropes. The former gets in the way of the latter when you can't even see the trope list when opening a page. Users with writing skills should take their efforts to places where the priorities are in their favor, e.g. this Doctor Who Wiki which cares about plot summaries.
I've noticed that a lot of the revival Doctor Who recaps (especially those from Steven Moffat's run) are extremely lengthy and detailed. Doesn't anyone else feel like a recap should be a concise and explanatory summary rather than a uber-detailed fanservicey retelling? I think verbatim dialogue usage and mentioning unimportant details that the writer happens to like especially needs to be removed. But all this depends on what a recap is supposed to be, so I wanted some clarification.