User:Lord Hydronium/Manual of Style for Published Works

This is a proposal for a standard style for out of universe works.

I've included bulleted notes on areas that need explanation, or where I feel I need to explain my choice. They are there as a provisional measure, and if this were ever finalized, they would of course not be needed.

Novels

 * 1) Brief introduction to work. Contains title, author, publication date, and whatever series the work is a part of.
 * 2) *Example: Medstar I: Battle Surgeons, the first book of the Medstar Duology, is a novel by Steve Perry and Michael Reeves, published in 2004.
 * 3) Publisher's Summary
 * 4) *Significant characters only, by which I mean, those characters who have a distinct impact on the novel in question. Whether they're main characters in other works shouldn't matter.  So, for example, Luke in whichever Rogue Squadron book he cameoed in wouldn't count.
 * 5) Dramatis Personae
 * 6) *I'll quote Xwing328 in Wookieepedia talk:Community Portal:"I think we should stick with the format used in the recent EU books: Rank Name; job (gender Species) - Admiral Traest Kre'fey; military officer (male Bothan) This way we can keep everything consistent. --Xwing328 04:17, 9 Jan 2006 (UTC)"
 * 7) Plot summary
 * 8) *In present tense. I trust people can use their own discretion in figuring out where to draw the line on how detailed it is.
 * 9) Other sections. Bestseller, fan reaction, controversy, etc.
 * 10) See also
 * 11) External links
 * 12) Series template (if applicable)

Comics (Trade Paperbacks)

 * 1) Brief introduction. Number of issues and publication date.  Leave credits to the issue pages.
 * 2) Publisher's Summary
 * 3) Plot summary
 * 4) *If it's an arc. Siege of Saleucami, Tales of the Jedi, Dark Empire and so forth fall under this.  I'm doing this rather than leaving it all to the individual issues for major arcs that work as one story.  Basically, so something like Dark Empire would be told as the one story it is rather than split up into 6.
 * 5) Dramatis Personae
 * 6) *See Plot summary.
 * 7) Issues
 * 8) Other sections
 * 9) *If it's an arc, include notes on the arc as a whole here. Dark Empire, for example, could have quite a bit here.
 * 10) See also
 * 11) External links
 * 12) Series template (if applicable)

Comics (Individual Issues)

 * 1) Brief introduction. Writer, pencils, inks, colorist.  Release date.
 * 2) Publisher's Summary
 * 3) Plot summary
 * 4) *Unless it's Tales or Clone Wars Adventures, in which case, this section is Stories.
 * 5) Dramatis Personae
 * 6) Collections
 * 7) *A list of collections with this comic.
 * 8) Other sections
 * 9) See also
 * 10) External links
 * 11) Arc template

Newspaper strips/Webstrips

 * 1) Brief introduction. Writer, pencils, inks, colorist.  Date it began and ended (if it has).  Number of issues total, if it ended.
 * 2) Publisher's Summary
 * 3) *On the OS, it's more like a blurb.
 * 4) Plot summary
 * 5) Dramatis Personae
 * 6) Other sections
 * 7) See also
 * 8) *If it's an adaptation, list the original.
 * 9) External links
 * 10) *Includes hyperspace for all the webstrips currently existing.

Short Stories

 * 1) Brief introduction. Author, illustrator (if there is one).  Original publication it was included in, followed by any subsequent ones.
 * 2) Publisher's Summary
 * 3) *Do these even have them?
 * 4) Plot summary
 * 5) Dramatis Personae
 * 6) Other sections
 * 7) See also
 * 8) External links
 * 9) *Again, hyperspace can come in handy.

Comics (Individual Stories)

 * 1) Brief introduction. Writer, pencils, inks, colorist.  Original publication it was included in, followed by any subsequent ones.
 * 2) Publisher's Summary
 * 3) Plot summary
 * 4) Dramatis Personae
 * 5) Other sections
 * 6) See also
 * 7) External links

Non-Narrative/Reference Books

 * 1) Brief introduction. Author and publication year.
 * 2) Publisher's summary
 * 3) Table of contents
 * 4) *Major headings.
 * 5) Other sections
 * 6) See also
 * 7) External links
 * 8) Series template

Games

 * 1) Brief introduction. Developer, publisher, platforms, and release year.
 * 2) Opening Crawl (if applicable)
 * 3) Plot summary
 * 4) *Clearly this only applies to the narrative elements of games. In a game with multiple campaigns, include each campaign under a subheading.
 * 5) Dramatis Personae
 * 6) Gameplay
 * 7) *Pertinent details only. Is it an FPS?  RPG?  Real time?  Turn based?  2D?  3D?  Out of universe details on the game itself.
 * 8) Cast (if applicable)
 * 9) Other sections
 * 10) See also
 * 11) External links
 * 12) Series template

Movies

 * 1) Brief introduction
 * 2) Opening Crawl
 * 3) Plot summary
 * 4) Cast and crew
 * 5) Cast
 * 6) Crew
 * 7) Reaction
 * 8) Other sections, including:
 * 9) Filming
 * 10) Novelization
 * 11) DVD release
 * 12) See also
 * 13) External links
 * 14) Movies template