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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.
Such related articles should be clearly cross-linked so that readers can understand the full context and impact of the work. Such an article may have what amounts to a different kind of plot summary. For instance, an article on Hamlet the character as opposed to Hamlet the play would just summarize Prince Hamlet's individual plot arc through ...
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.
Wikipedia's style guidelines determine how we write about fictional works here on Wikipedia; they do not restrict how others write about fictional works. Plot summaries necessarily involve selecting which elements of a fictional work are important enough to include in the summary and are thus secondary, rather than primary, sources.
The topic of the article must be notable: it must have in-depth coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the topic. If you are connected to the topic, don't write about it. Find another topic instead. Make sure there isn't already an article about the topic. The article you write must include citations to the sources you used.
The lead section of an article is itself a summary of the article's content. When Wikipedia 1.0 was being discussed, one idea was that the lead section of the web version could be used as the paper version of the article. Summary style and news style can help make a concise introduction that works as a standalone article.
An excessively detailed article is often one that repeats itself or exhibits writing that could be more concise. The development of summary-style articles tends to naturally clear out redundancy and bloat, though in a multi-article topic this comes at the cost of some necessary cross-article redundancy (i.e., a summary of one article in another).
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 the narrative present tense. A summary for a full-length novel should be between 400 and 700 words.