Talk:A Long-expected Party

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Latest comment: 28 June 2023 by Headrock in topic Past Tense?

Should we add "History" sections to the chapters, detailing their evolution? --Narfil Palùrfalas 17:17, 29 December 2007 (EST)

"Should"? You don't have to do anything, of course! ;-) However, I think it would be, indeed, a nice addition to an article! Great idea! ~ Earendilyon 14:19, 30 December 2007 (EST)

Past Tense?[edit source]

The Fellowship of the Ring article describes the events of the book in the present tense, as is customary when reporting on a narrative. Conversely, A Long Expected Party (as well as the articles for all other chapters in the book) describes events in the past tense, as is customary when reporting historical information.

Since "A Long-expected Party" is an out-of-universe concept - a chapter of the novel - shouldn't it be in the present tense as well?

Same goes for each other chapter article, of course. ---172.70.200.142 01:39, 15 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I agree more or less. The other chapters are summarized in past tense too, save "The Shadow of the Past", so it should be rewritten. However, the summary of this chapter has some flaws, and the division in parts is lame and unappropiate. Somebody do something please. --LorenzoCB (talk) 11:31, 15 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Well, I've made myself an account and have finished the first edit. Here is a list of changes:

  • Present tense, as discussed, for all passages describing events in the book. This is not a description of Middle-Earth history, but a description of the narrative of the novel itself, which should always be in present tense.
  • Multiple sentences have been shortened and simplified to make for better readability. Some pronouns replaced with proper nouns for the same reason.
  • Some superfluous or repeated information removed. We don't need to describe every little thing. In fact, I think that even more could be removed, I just wasn't confident enough to do so.
  • The artificial separation of the summary into three sub-chapters has been removed; It's too short to warrant them, and they are arbitrary anyway.
  • Added a few links, e.g. Primula Brandybuck.
  • Removed several superlatives added by previous editors to make the summary more dry and to the point. There are still a few left; However there's reason to keep some of them in, if they describe pertinent emotional reactions described in the book itself, e.g. the excitement of the Hobbits.

I believe this should be sufficient. If the article is at least acceptable as-is, I'll proceed to do the same to the other chapters. If I have time, I should be able to tackle all three books in the same way. Headrock (talk) 18:31, 26 June 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It looks great, thanks so much for tackling that for us! Hyarion (talk) 23:14, 26 June 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I have yet to receive any feedback on the length of the summaries for the next chapter (I have also written one for the third chapter already). Would you mind taking a look and letting me know if I've gone too far? I'm not sure exactly how summarized these summaries should be, and I'd like to find out before I spend too much time researching and writing them. Thank you. Headrock (talk) 21:42, 28 June 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Hello Headrock.
I have recently rewritten a couple of chapter summaries and I am planning on getting a few more done each month; I’ve recently updated The King of the Golden Hall and Helm's Deep (chapter).
I feel that your summary is of a good quality, although slightly longer than I would prefer. It isn’t easy to get right and I’m
not certain I have the right balance either.
Keep going, I’d be happy to work with you to get them all reviewed, some are in dire need of updating!
JR Snow (talk) 21:59, 28 June 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Well, at least it's good to know that I haven't overstepped by too much.
I'm approaching this with a philosophy that these articles should be able to tell the entire story of the book in an abridged form. Someone reading them from start to finish should be able to fully understand the plot of the book, and maybe even be able to have a conversation about it, even if they haven't actually read the book. In order to do that, it's necessary to describe certain things in more detail, and that's where the problem starts.
For example, this particular article - which I did not rewrite completely - glosses over how Gandalf manages to convince Bilbo to release the Ring. This begs the question: Does Gandalf's ability to manipulate Bilbo the way he did benefit the reader's understanding of the narrative (with regards the character of Gandalf), or is it purely flavour that we dearly love as fans but a casual peruser wouldn't need? I think it's the former, but the original editor apparently thought the latter.
The benefit to including more, of course, is that it's much easier to then go back and chop things like that out. The only question is who, if anyone, would ever go back and do that. Headrock (talk) 23:47, 28 June 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]