Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Something Wicked This Way Comes (novel)/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 20:17, 9 January 2007.

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Something Wicked This Way Comes (novel)

This is a self-nomination. I added the plot summary, characters, analysis, criticism, adaptations, and popular culture sections, also referencing as much critical sources I could find. I also tried to make the prose as smooth and natural as possible. I did a peer review on it which is now archived, and since then have gone over the article again and again, and am now fairly sure that there is nothing much left to be added. Since this is my first featured article review, I would appreciate any comments, support, or objections made. Breed Zona 20:08, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Weak Object: Very nice so far. I have a couple problems though that need to be solved before I can support: Writing has several redundancies and small problems in it. Run through the entire article to find these. Some examples:

*It is about two thirteen-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, who have a harrowing experience with a nightmarish carnival that comes to their Midwestern town one October, and is presided over by the mysterious "Mr. Dark" who bears a tattoo for each person bound in service to the carnival—many unwillingly. Sentence is too long, and the "many unwillingly" at the end is ungainly.

*Mr. Dark's malevolent presence is balanced by that of Will's father, Charles Halloway, who finds his own life force tempered by middle-age melancholy. What does "balanced" mean, and I'm not sure what the last clause is saying.

*Something Wicked This Way Comes can be considered a true full-length novel with a consistent plot throughout. Remove "true" and "throughout".

*These two novels, coupled with Bradbury's official 2006 sequel to Dandelion Wine, Farewell Summer, make up a Green Town trilogy. "the Green Town Trilogy", not "a Green Town Trilogy".

*When the sun has risen, Will and Jim head on down to the carnival. Remove "on down".

I would also try to keep out any unnecessary detail, like "although they are disquieted by the way the people set the tents up silently, in an almost ghost-like manner." Just try to establish that the carnival is unusual and mysterious; don't copy the novel. "Notes" should be renamed "References". The latter section can just be removed entirely; it's obvious that the novel would be your reference. Online references need accessdates, and should be in the cite news template, if there is an author listed. Keep up the good work, you're nearly there.--Dark Kubrick 20:12, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Dark Kubrick, for commenting. I went over the article again and made some tweaks here and there, but nothing major. I also added today's date (that counts, right, if I don't remember the original access dates?) to the online references after checking each of them again to make sure they haven't vanished into thin air. I'm not sure what you're referring to, though, with the "cite news template." Do you mean that I need to remove the book references from the References and list them in their own section? Could you link me to the template you're referring to? Breed Zona 02:00, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

This is the template I'm talking about Template:Cite news. There's also Template:Cite web, but I use that if there isn't an author. For the online refs, all you need is the title, hyperlink, author, publication date (if there is one given), publisher, and access date. Hope that helps.--Dark Kubrick 02:42, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, at Wikipedia:Citation templates it is stated that "the use of Citation templates is not required by WP:CITE and is neither encouraged nor discouraged by any other Wikipedia citation guidelines." In short, it's about personal preference. My preference is no citations, just the references done in the correct format. I've revised some references to fit the format shown in the citation templates without actually using the templates themselves -- they take up too much space, IMHO. Breed Zona 03:41, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Whatever, the way you've done it is fine.--Dark Kubrick 14:49, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• Object plot summary is way too long. Quoting from WP:NOT:

Plot summaries. Wikipedia articles on works of fiction should contain real-world context and sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's achievements, impact or historical significance, not solely a summary of that work's plot. A plot summary may be appropriate as an aspect of a larger topic.

Remove the plot summary and the character description and there is not that much left in the article. The writing is pretty good but there are many very short paragraphs in the later sections. A number of novels which currently have FA status should probably be downgraded to GA in any case. Pascal.Tesson 03:40, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• • Thanks for commenting, Pascal. I would like some specific criticism before I reedit the article, though. Just how long should a good plot summary be? One page long? I tried not to include everything in the summary, leaving out some side plots. Also, which other sections do I need to expand and by how much? The background section? The theme section? The criticism section? The adaptations section? The popular culture section is short because there's not really much direct references to the novel. Breed Zona 23:13, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.