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A plot summary is not a recap. It should not cover every scene or every moment of a story. A summary is not meant to reproduce the experience of reading or watching the work. In fact, readers might be here because they didn't understand the original. Just repeating what they have already seen or read is unlikely to help them.
For example, a summary of Citizen Kane should establish that much of the film is an extended flashback that is bookended by scenes in the film's present; the entire plot summary should still be written in narrative present tense. Summaries may depart from the fiction's chronological order if doing so enhances clarity or brevity.
In the case study, "Little Red Riding Hood", the actual story can be written in 10 pages. The plot is about 240 words. In a 300-page novel (not really long), a proportion plot summary would be 7,200 words - about as long as "Little Red Riding Hood". So "Little Red Riding Hood" is not a realistic example, it's far too easy.
Plot summaries for feature films should be between 400 and 700 words. The summary should not exceed this range unless the film's structure is unconventional, such as with non-linear storylines, or unless the plot is too complicated to summarize in this range. Discuss with other editors to determine if a summary cannot be contained within the ...
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. This means that an article about a work of fiction or elements from such works should not solely be a summary of the primary and tertiary sources , they should ...
In a long plot summary, this can be removed. "The masked killer crashes the teens' party. In the resulting hysteria, he decapitates Bob with a machete, stabs Betty with a Bowie knife three times in the heart (just like Betty's father did to the killer's mother), and chases after Jane after she escapes through the back door."
Wikipedia articles concerning fiction frequently feature overly long or excessively detailed plot summaries. While any plot section can be trimmed, it can be hard to know what to cut if one hasn't consumed the relevant media, while those who have might be tempted to explain any intricacy that arises to give the reader the full experience of the show.
Sections of long articles should be spun off into their own articles, leaving summaries in their place. Summary sections are linked to the detailed article with a {{Main|name of detailed article}} or comparable template. To preserve links to the edit history of the moved text, the first edit summary of the new article links back to the original.