Talk:A Simple Plan (novel)

Store killings

The article says

Hank frantically inquires about where she spent the money. He then goes to the store and kills the cashier who had served his wife.

This misses an element of the horror: a middle-aged female customer enters on business, and he has to kill her as well.
--Jerzy•t 05:18, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

In that regard, I deleted the comment about murder in a pre-meditated fashion. All of the deaths in both book and movie were capital murder, including Lou and Nancy. Self-defense is not a defense against the death penalty if you kill co-conspirators to cover your own participation in a crime. From the moment Pederson/Dwight Stephenson was killed, they were all first degree murder--and most were pre-meditated. ANY forethought is pre-meditation, and killing the witness to a murder is even more despicable. Confusing "innocent" with "guilty" victims here--but they're all victims. Lou would have been just as guilty if he'd killed Hank--just not as "sympathetic". In the book the clerk and the customer were "innocents" with no connection whatsoever to the original crimes, and perhaps were left out of the movie because of that. Hank in the movie did not just "commit some crimes"--he is a murderer--and there are no gray areas.--Buckboard 17:07, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Plot summary

I've trimmed the overlong plot summary. --Tony Sidaway 23:07, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Oops, looks like there has been an edit war over this. I've invoked an RFC to see what other editors think. --Tony Sidaway 22:53, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Per the MoS: A plot summary should avoid reproducing the work being discussed. Instead, it should summarise the work, touching on plot, important events, character developments etc. In a longer work, every conversation and event does not need to be mentioned. Size of the plot summary should be roughly proportional to the size of the plot. This is not always equivalent to the length of the work, since some plots are complex and dense while others are simple and straight-forward. The summary was too long, and didn't really 'summarise' the plot. The shorter version may be too short, but it's easy to expand upon, rather than reduce the and this happens and then this happens content of the too-long version to something readable. Ignore my comment on my edit summary about word limits, I was thinking of the fillum. Geoff B (talk) 09:44, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I see we're back to the 10 kilobyte synopsis on a 1.5 kilobyte stub.  :) --Tony Sidaway 16:25, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

This is a preposterous discussion. There are thousands of novels with detailed summaries and sypnosis' on Wikipedia and this is just one more. The shorter version doesn't need to be expanded upon because there already is a detailed version that informs the reader of the content of the novel. Alternatively, they could read a shorter one at the top of the page, but there is absolutely no reason whatsoever why the longer one shouldn't remain. --Drstrangelove57 —Preceding comment was added at 21:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I've noticed that you and Geoff B both seem to be involved in edit warring on this article, and on A Simple Plan (film). I would like you both to stop, please. There's no need for that. Meanwhile let's see if some relatively uninvolved people are willing to give their opinions. --Tony Sidaway 23:10, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Certainly. Geoff B (talk) 23:54, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

RfC response: Before I answer, I want to state a couple guiding principles on plot summaries (1) They are designed to give a reader an overview of the movie (2) They are not designed to recreate the movie. A reader should know major plot events, and be generally familiar with the storyline, but their will and should be major gaps when it comes to details, motivations, nuance and other plot details. That said, this article's current plot summary is entirely too long. According to WP:FilmPlot, plot summaries should be between 400 and 700 words, and even extremely involved, long and/or complicated films should not exceed 900 words under any circumstances. I agree with this estimation and feel that it is actually pretty generous. Take the film Ocean's Eleven, which is pretty complicated. Its plot section only has a word-count of 732. I think the mistakes in the plot summary to A Simple Plan are exemplified in this portion:

The novel's main character is Hank Mitchell, a middle-class family-man-to-be who works as an accountant. One day Hank goes to visit his father's grave, accompanied by: Jacob Mitchell, Hank's shy and slow-witted elder brother; Lou, Jacob's drinking-buddy. Despite having less-than-fond memories (and therefore little respect) for their father, Jacob supplies his poorly-maintained and uncomfortable pickup truck for said excursion. En route, Jacob is cut off by a fox and veers his truck into a ditch, wrecking the shoddy vehicle.

This is too colorful (bordering on OR or even POV) and provides too much detail. A better phrasing follows:

The protagonist, Hank Mitchell, visits his father's grave with his slow-witted brother Jacob, and Jacob's drinking buddy. En route, a fox cuts in front of Jacob's truck and he veers into a ditch and wrecks.

Also, this section at the end is editorial and can be reduced to one sentence stating their remorse:

Hank and Sarah both feel as if this is punishment for their crimes. They are far worse off than they were before; Hank has become destitute, like his father, they will never be able to afford the things they want, and the guilt over their actions haunt them relentlessly througout their every moment. The novel ends as Hank laments his weakness, wondering how normal people such as himself could succumb to such great evil.

Rules of thumb (1) be careful to leave out interpretation; (2) Don't use five words where two will do, and (3) if you can understand the movie plot without it, leave it out.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 16:59, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Good points, except for two things:

1. This is a novel, not a film. 2. The end is not editorializing, because that's exactly how the novel ends. It is told in the first person and that is literally what Hank is talking about.

But I agree with you whole-heartedly about some points. Drstrangelove57 (talk) 17:21, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Break of the arbitrary kind

• The article needs some balance between plot and "out of universe" information. There is currently too much of the former, not enough of the latter. I'm thinking shorter plot summary and adding some sourced info. --Sturm 23:11, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

• Instead of relying on a MoS style guide, let's consult the governing policy:

  Wikipedia articles on published works (such as fictional stories) should contain real-world context and sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's development and historical significance, not solely a detailed summary of that work's plot.

  I think it's fair to say that a page in which there is only a detailed plot analysis, with little or no context and sourced analysis is an egregious violation of the policy. /Blaxthos ( t / c ) 23:22, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Conclusion

{{editprotected}} Please remove the massive in-universe "Detailed plot summary" section, per the general consensus from closed RFC above. Disclaimer: I removed the section once a while ago and participated in the discussion. /Blaxthos ( t / c ) 03:05, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

 Not done

My interpretation of the RfC above, and my knowledge of WP:PLOT, does not support this course of action. Wikipedia articles about books or films should have plot summaries. However, these should be of an appropriate length. Ten times the size of the rest of the article text is not an appropriate length.

My proposed remedy is fairly sweeping, but I hope it will prove effective. I have removed the entire plot summary from the article, and moved it to an unprotected subpage (Talk:A Simple Plan/Plot summary). I suggest that the editors who are familiar with this novel work to rewrite this summary into a more appropriate form, which will probably be about 1,500-2,000 bytes rather than 10,000. Once a suitable summary has been created, readd the {{editprotected}} template and ask for the summary to be restored to the article. In fact, once the summary has been decided on, the page will no longer need to be protected.

If any admin feels that my actions are too unilateral, I will not object to them being reversed. Non-admins who object to this solution should start a thread at WP:AN. Happy‑melon 18:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I would be happy to try and write something better, but since I'm still of the belief that deleting the whole thing is abusrd, perhaps Blaxthos or Strum or someone else who lobbied to take the summary down in the first place should volunteer for the task of rewriting the summary. Drstrangelove57 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 16:32, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm still at a loss here. My request was for the removal of the Detailed Plot Synopsis section, which by all accounts is entirely too long. I believe that the Plot Summary of one paragraph is appropriate given the overall length of this article... it certainly should not eclipse the real-world analysis and impact section. Hope this clears things up. /Blaxthos ( t / c ) 18:26, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Blaxthos, happy to see you could make it with your usual bogus excuses utilizing a labyrinthe interpretation of every obscure Wikipedia rule and petty power plays. Still absent with a good reason that the summary should be deleted, made all the more classy by the fact that you apparently haven't read the novel, and thus are demonstrably here simply to bully other editors. Glad you could make it.

Meanwhile, a perfectly good summary of the novel has been wiped out and no one wants to write a new one. I would volunteer, but seeing as I've no reason to believe that what I write won't simply be stomped out just so that some jerk can feel like a bigshot, I don't really want to bother. Drstrangelove57 (talk) 20:15, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Every other responding editor, including the closing admin, has expressed agreement that the plot summary should be concise and not overshadow the stated purpose of the article (including real-world analysis and impact). I'm unaware of any previous interaction you and I have had, Drstrangelove57, but if you would spend more energy learning our policies and guidelines than making personal attacks and not assuming good faith. If so many editors respond in the same way, maybe you're misunderstanding the policy or guideline. In either case, don't take things so personally. /Blaxthos ( t / c ) 03:41, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Blaxthos, first off, thank you for proving my point by unloading the rule acronymns on me. Second, seeing as you are completely unfamiliar with the novel being discussed, I am going to help you out a bit: it is not politically right-wing. At all. In fact, the author is probably a feverent leftist.

There, now you can stop trying to destroy the article. Drstrangelove57 (talk) 03:59, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

From WP:PLOT (emphasis added):

“ Wikipedia articles on published works (such as fictional stories) should contain real-world context and sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's development and historical significance, not solely a detailed summary of that work's plot. This applies to both stand-alone works and series. A concise plot summary is appropriate as part of the larger coverage of a fictional work. ”

From MOS:FILM#Plot, which is generally accepted to be a good guideline for books and plays as well as films:

“ Plot summaries should be between 400 and 700 words and should not exceed 900 words unless there is a specific reason such as a very complicated plot. ”

These guidelines very clearly indicate that the version previously in the article, at 1,698 words, is almost three times the recommended length. This is particularly inappropriate in a stub article which has almost no other content. I beseach you both to apply your editing skills and knowledge of the novel to recrafting the plot summary into a form which is in line with these policies. Happy‑melon 09:49, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Why should I? So Blaxthos or someone else can delete it for some silly reason? It's plainly clear that everyone here conspiring to ruin the article isn't even familiar with the book. This would be akin to me going to a perfectly good but long article about organic chemistry, deleting just about everything, and then bolting when someone asks me to help make it "comply with Wikipedia's rules." Drstrangelove57 (talk) 15:33, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Why should you? Because it would be a valuable contribution to the encyclopedia if you did. Let's not lose sight of the reason why we're here. We're here to write an encyclopedia. That encyclopedia should contain a professional-standard article on A Simple Plan. A professional-standard article would contain an appropriate-length plot summary. It would also contain other content about the real-world impact of the novel, its publication, reception, awards, etc. None of that content is currently present in the article. So the best thing you can do for the encyclopedia is to write some of it. Happy‑melon 16:17, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I have helped write some of it, and now it has been thrown out for two reasons, one arbitrary, one spiteful. Rest assured that whatever I help write now will simply be thrown out by you, Happy, or by Blaxthos using the traffic-cop style interpretation of rules, or by some other jerk down the road who thinks that whatever has been written is too short, too long, or whatever idiotic cause they decide to apply to ruining an article for the glorification of their ego. What's the point? Drstrangelove57 (talk) 16:31, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I refuse to continue to converse with an editor who takes things so personally, refuses to acknowledge consensus, and vehemently and repeatedly attacks other editors. Your behavior is appalling and pitiful. To Melon & others: I'll see about making an appropriately sized summary sometime in the next week or so. Thanks for your help. /Blaxthos ( t / c ) 16:34, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Consensus is a euphemism on Wikipedia for 2 against 1. Every time I every make a point it is simply ignored. I've tried to better this article yet the "consensus" is that it needs to be torn down and thrown out.

As for Blaxthos, if I want to take etiquette lessons for someone notorious for gaming the rules and bullying anyone who disagrees with his power edits of political articles, then I'll know where to look. Drstrangelove57 (talk) 16:58, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you all for obstinately sticking to the letter of the rules for another notch on your belts. Mindsets like that are ruining Wikipedia. I so thoroughly enjoyed digging through the page history to find exactly what I was looking for and hoping to read on the first try. Thanks for making my Wikipedia experience so great. Appreciate the work, guys. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.59.101.196 (talk) 18:50, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I see no one has gone ahead and replaced the article. How about restoring it and allowing the entry to serve curious viewers? Drstrangelove57 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 10:52, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Apparently not. Thank you guys for proving my point, although something-else you for ruining the article to satisfy your ego. Drstrangelove57 (talk) 21:58, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Here and now

I'd like to take a second to point out that despite my dissatisfaction of the article being truncated to such an extent, and with no assistance whatsoever from the guy who swore he'd personally work to fix the page up, I worked on the summary and happy-melon tweaked it until he approved it and applied it to the page. So unless another admin or two come here and declare that even that should be stripped from the page ala Blaxthos suggestion, I'll be content to simply revert it to the agreed upon version daily until the end of time. Drstrangelove57 (talk) 08:24, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Stating an intent to continually revert isn't going to help the article, and you may actually get blocked for edit warring. You don't want that, and I doubt anyone else does. We are trying to work towards a better article, with a plot summary of reasonable length. Now, a plot summary is actually what it should be, a relatively concise summary of the plot of the work, and the guideline of 700 words is perfectly reasonable. In the case of A Simple Plan, it will probably edge over that due to the convoluted nature of the plot, but we should still be able to do it justice and come in under the 900-word mark. Just because we can't devote thousands of words to the plot summary doesn't mean we can't have a good plot summary, or a good article. Doing the work justice with sourced, real-world context/analysis etc as a whole will take up a lot more words than even a step-by-step plot summary. Geoff B (talk) 10:04, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to get in the way of your desire to ruin the article, but the summary was APPROVED by the moderator. Now despite that, you are trying AGAIN to destroy the article. This is complete nonsense, a bitter and meanspirited assault on this article and frankly the spirit of Wikipedia, which is considered a farce by most serious people for exactly this reason.

I'll state it again: this version was APPROVED and put in place by happy-melon, the admin in charge of it. HE APPROVED IT. Read the last two sentences again and again and again if you're still having trouble with that. Then read it again, just to be sure. Sit it on it have some coffee and come back and reread them once more. If you're still upset that the article hasn't been sufficiently ruined, then go get another admin and get him or her say that yes, this article would be better if all relevant content was removed. Okay? Drstrangelove57 (talk) 16:10, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I've protected it based upon the discussion at WP:ANI#USER:Drstrangelove57. Discuss here and come to a consensus upon the preferred method; personal and character attacks, and edit warring does not resolve any issue. seicer | talk | contribs 16:15, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

You thugs should just throw it out. Seriously, unprotect it and trash the damn thing, I'm not gonna try to put it back up because it's not even close to worth the trouble, cause if some twerp can just pull in one of their admin pals to be on their side, I've lost no matter how (obviously) right I am. Drstrangelove57 (talk) 16:22, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

There's no need for name-calling. Why is reducing one section of the article to a reasonable length ruining it? You're taking this too personally. One minute you're going to continually revert any changes, the next you're not. Who called in an 'admin pal'? Admins, believe it or not, are not gods. You're talking about them as if their decisions are immutable and immortal. No-one wants to ruin the article. Editors edit to improve articles. Just because it'd not the way you personally want it doesn't mean it's ruined. Geoff B (talk) 16:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry about me, I'm done arguging, and won't edit anything else. Why could it possibly be worth the trouble? We had the dispute once, a compromise was eventually made, and now the process is starting over, and if I were to help once again, this would just happen again in a month until the plot summary was reduced to 20 words. If you'll notice, last time there was a war and someone who had previously thrown out the entire thing offered to work on it, they didn't do anything, and I expect as much here. Go ahead and prove me correct. Drstrangelove57 (talk) 16:37, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

You are not interested in a compromise. Instead, your ideology lies between "my way or the highway" and "I'm taking all of my basketballs and going home." Sorry, don't want to work with others, and instead resort to petty comments and attacks? Then, take your game elsewhere. seicer | talk | contribs 17:48, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Reading helps. There already WAS a compromise a while back. I wanted a large version, Blaxthos wanted a non-version, happy-melon settled on something in the middle. Now Blaxthos simply came and threw that one out and put back up the version that started the original edit war. It looks like the way "compromise" is going to work here is that people who know how to work the rules to get what they want will slowly get their version to be law as part of "compromising."

Reviewing the history, I notice a couple of things. First, I had predicted that should I work on the summary to get it shorter that Blaxthos would simply come along a month later and delete it, and this is exactly what he did. Whether or not his doing so is a response to me, I can't tell, though it's certainly difficult to ignore the connection.

Second, happy-melon specifies that a plot summary should be between 400 and 700 words. Okay, then. The version I had worked on and was up until a day ago clocked in at 737 words when I checked it out, 37 over. Blaxthos' version, which clearly hasn't even been checked for GUM errors, clocks in at 87 words, or 313 too short of the minimum. Say what you will about my behavior, but his is patently outrageous. This edit war could have been avoided altogether had he or Geoff or whoever trimmed excess words from the article or started a discussion on here instead of throwing out the entire admin approved article. Drstrangelove57 (talk) 18:10, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

1. Administrators do not "approve" articles. See WP:CONSENSUS.
2. I've filed a second ANI report regarding your continued personal attacks, disruption, and statement of willingness to edit war ad infinitum.
3. Every responding editor, except for you, has agreed that the plot summary you've repeatedly inserted violates WP:PLOT.

/Blaxthos ( t / c ) 18:18, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

As is typical in Wiki-arguments, the party in the affirmative makes valid points that are then simply ignored by the party in the negative. So Blaxthos, I'd like to hear your explanation about why your version, 313 words short of the minimum, is more appropriate than mine, which was 37 over the max, and what justified your deletion of the one I and happy-melon had worked on. Drstrangelove57 (talk) 18:24, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I would like at this point to emphasise one point that has been raised above: administrators are not "moderators": it is not correct to say that I "approved" the 737-word version. Rather, I consider that my involvement consisted of mediating the dispute and encouraging a compromise to be found. And sure enough, the version which was placed in the article at its unprotection was only half the length of the original, and falls (or fell, a few extra words have crept in since then it appears) within a literal interpretation of WP:PLOT. By a similarly literal interpretation, the 87-word version does indeed fall well short of the standard prescribed by that guideline. What does this tell us? That we do not have a code of law: guidelines and even policies must not to be considered rules, but suggestions on which to base consensual and sensical decisions. One version is clearly too short, the other is rather too long; that means that the perfect solution lies somewhere in the middle, and will have to be reached by compromise. "My way or the highway" opinions are completley useless in this discussion, so there's very little point in hearing them from either side. I beseech all of you to work together to reach that magic length somewhere in the middle. Happy‑melon 19:53, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Drstrangelove57 has contacted me by e-mail and requested to exercise the Right to Vanish. I have deleted and salted his user and user talk pages, and he has stated an intention to scramble his password. Happy‑melon 20:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Moving forward

It's almost always unfortunate when a contributor chooses to vanish. It was not my contention that a two sentence summary is sufficient, and I was completely willing to work towards a compliant version before walking away due to repeated personal attacks. The most important (and apparently most overlooked) governing policy states: Wikipedia treats fiction in an encyclopedic manner; discussing the reception, impact and significance of notable works. A concise plot summary is appropriate as part of the larger coverage of a fictional work. I think that we should work on extending the encyclopedic treatment of the topic, and find a summary length that fits the real world context. /Blaxthos ( t / c ) 21:30, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I concur: the development of the other important areas of this article seems to have been overlooked in favour of the development of reams of discussion about the nature of the plot summary. Happy‑melon 21:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, hope we can get a good article together about the book (and the film, come to that). Geoff B (talk) 22:22, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Plot summary revisited

Once again (quel suprie) someone has re-inserted the excessive plot summary. I will excise it down to the post-RFC version in a few days, assuming no one else takes it upon themselves to appropriately trim it from its current form. Also, this article could use some actual encyclopedic treatment of the subject (especially the significance of the book). //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 19:53, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

After the most recent round of plot summary expansion, I have taken the pruning shears to it, and I think I have it down to an acceptable length unburdened by unnecessary details and opinions. ---RepublicanJacobite_TheFortyFive 21:31, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

While I applaud your efforts towards compromise, it's still entirely too much. From relevant policies/guidelines (emphasis added):

1. WP:NOT / WP:PLOT: Wikipedia is not ... Summary-only descriptions of works
2. MoS: The length of a plot summary should be carefully balanced with the length of the other sections. Strictly avoid creating pages consisting only of a plot summary.
3. WP:PLOTONLY: Coverage of fictional topics should provide balanced coverage that includes both plot summary and real-world context. The coverage of a fictional work should not be a mere plot summary. A summary should facilitate substantial coverage of the work's real-world development, reception, and significance.

Looks to me like we're going back to violating the policies and guidelines to satisfy an edit warrior who has shown he has no respect for those policies and guidelines. My recommendation is to revert and report, not reward... //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 05:57, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

And again...

The anonymous user continues to restore the inordinately-long plot and has made no attempt to explain his actions. At some point, an admin. will have to become involved. ---RepublicanJacobite_TheFortyFive 15:16, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Reviews

In an effort to expand this beyond the painfully-too-long plot summary that the anonymous but dedicated editor tries to inject each month, I'm attempting to track down some out-of-universe ("real world") reviews of the book or other information to establish significance and reaction. The only thing I've found so far in actual reliable sources is the first paragraph of this NYtimes review, which is actually of another book by Smith but does include info on this book in the first paragraph. Can anyone else find reliably sourced information about ASP? Thanks! //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 15:53, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I will look around and see what I can find. ---RepublicanJacobite_TheFortyFive 16:03, 16 June 2012 (UTC)