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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 forcoverage 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.
A Wikipedia articleshould only exist if the subject has significant coverage inreliable 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.
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 throughThe Wikipedia Library:
Your local library may also provide access to the above databases. In addition, the following resources may be available through your local library:
If your local library doesn't have these works available, seeWikipedia:Find your source.
If little else turns up, you could look for book reviews written by respectable publications, such asKirkus Review,Publishers Weekly,Library Journal,USA Today, orThe 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.
The following are the standard components of Wikipedia novel articles, though exact formats will vary. Note that the article body does not include thelead 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 anout-of-universe perspective.
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 thenarrative 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 aprimary 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 asecondary source. Direct quotes from the novel are not usually part of a summary, but if used they should becited using inline citations.
A plot summary should describe the plot in its entirety, including all major plot points, significanttwists, and the ending. Accordingly, and as explained in thespoiler 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 theno disclaimers guideline.
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 anindiscriminate collection of information. Such a section is sometimes titledPrincipal characters, to remind editors to think twice before adding a character.
Themes are often the most interesting aspect of a story. However, an exploration of themes should not be based on your ownoriginal 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.
This section should lay out the writing styles employed by the author. For example, if the novel is anepistolary 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'spostmodernist tendencies, andJane 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.
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.
A Publication history section should cover magazine serialisations (many ofCharles Dickens' novels), changes by the author (Maria Edgeworth'sBelinda), changes due to later controversy (Roald Dahl'sCharlie and the Chocolate Factory), or re-issues of commercial or reputational significance (Patrick O'Brian'sMaster and Commander). Lists of dates and publishers of unremarkable re-issues, translations and so onshould be avoided. If there are no noteworthy differences between editions, a Publication history section is not needed. Any significant details about the original publication could likely fit into the Background section.
A Reception section should analyze how the novel was received by professional reviewers or influential opinion-makers. (Quotes from users onAmazon.com and blogs do not count, as these areself-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.
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 sufficientlynotable 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 constitutesoriginal research and should be avoided.
All Wikipedia article content must beverifiable. This usually meansciting sources, which typically appear asfootnotes. 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 theWayback Machine.
Thelead 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.
| Author | Harper Lee |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | |
| 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 isTemplate:Infobox book, thoughTemplate:Infobox novella orTemplate: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 novelTo 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.
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 asnon-free content, which means that you will need to give arationale for why the cover is being used. In the example infobox displayed here, the image has been removed, asWikipedia fair use policy only allows fair use images in the articlenamespace, or on thefile description page itself.
Finding and uploading an image.Covers can be found at various sites, includingAmazon.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 theInternet Archive.
Once you have found a suitable image:
{{Non-free use rationale book cover}} and{{Non-free book cover}} should both be on the file description page.Thegenre field is optional, as some novels don't neatly fit into any particular category. A list of genres can be found on themain project page.
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 theenglish_pub_date field for date of first English-language publication.
Theseries,preceded_by, andfollowed_by fields inTemplate:Infobox book are intended for novels that form part of an official series. These fields should not be used for unofficial sequels, or for unrelated works that are merely by the same author. Theseries field should include a link to the Wikipedia article about the series, while thepreceded_by andfollowed_by fields should link to the articles about the corresponding novels within the series. For standalone novels, all three fields should remain blank.
Do not create aTrivia 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. Acollection of random facts may create a sense of a "fan site" rather than an encyclopedia article.
Once an article has been created for a novel, it can be entered into any applicablelists.
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: