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This is talk page associated with the WikiProject Short story task force belonging to Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels. It is used as a discussion forum for the task force.

Discussion for the Short story task force

we need to add to the list a collection of short stories by Dr.Moogerbil and Dr.McNully, there short stories are soo funny and doesent make any sense, on the contrary they have sufisticated Philosophy for this time in age

DrMoogerbil 18:46, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

None of the Doctor Who categories need to be here as they all list either full novels (though some of the novelizations are considered novellas) or audio dramas or televised episodes. None of them cover short stories per se. 23skidoo 22:11, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• No disagreement. However, I only put in the categories that were already listed under the various categories that do fall within the scope of this task force. Maybe we could contact the people at Wikipedia:WikiProject Doctor Who and ask them if they would be willing to recategorize the categories? Badbilltucker 22:33, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Doctor Who pages have been recategorized. Badbilltucker 20:56, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I tried adding the SS Task force tag to an article as per instructions on the project page, but instead of simply adding a line to the banner it instead placed the big blue monster of a TOC as seen on the project page. Is there a way to make a succinct line that appears on the NovelsWikiProject banner instead of replacing the banner -- along with its assessment scale information, I might add -- with the big TOC? 23skidoo 22:16, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Can you specify which page we're talking about, so we can know how it looks? I've always been a horrible roadside gawker, myself. :) Badbilltucker 22:33, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The documentation was slightly incorrect - I have added the correct template to the task force page now, but you need to use {{NovelsWikiProject}} qualified with "|short-story-task-force=yes". Sorry for the confusion. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 09:06, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Now it works. Thanks! I've added the tag to all the applicable Simon Templar, William S. Burroughs, Modesty Blaise and James Bond articles that I've worked on, as well as a few others. 23skidoo 20:11, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that most of the categories listed in the section Category:Short stories by year are non-existent or near empty. Would it be possible to create or incorporate into a template that would automatically place the short story in the category corresponding to a user-specified year? Foxjwill 00:10, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Question: is this category only for the dates of the actual stories themselves, or their publication. There have been a couple of cases now where collections that originally resided in a category such as "YEAR books" has been moved to "YEAR short stories" even though the year given is not necessarily the year the story was written or even first published. I think a standard should be set that date categories should only be used for articles on specific short stories, and not short story collections, etc. 23skidoo 05:15, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To be consistent with other books and novel date categories this this shoud relate to year of publication. If they are not published they have no true "existence" yet in the public arena. However there could be a case for using writing date "if known" (and it often isn't) when unofficial "released and "leaked out". But these would be rare. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 09:06, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've created a short story infobox at {{Infobox short story}} - this seems like an appropriate place to mention it. I created it because many of the sections for the book infobox just didn't apply, and some needed to be added. -User:Elizabennet | talk 21:40, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nice contribution - I have added in publisher as this may not be present elsewhere and also I believe the subject field is redundant and short stories are almost without exception fiction. For our purposes anyway thay are fiction. Genre covers what we need. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 11:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have set up a page for this infobox with pattern code to insert for a new article. I have also added some documentation to the template in the "talk page". :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 09:04, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have just nominated the "by type" to change to "by genre" see. Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_January_16#Category:Short_stories_by_type :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 12:34, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The recent renaming of short stories-by-author categories reminded me of a question I've been meaning to ask. Are novellas considered "short stories" as far as the purview of this task force? If not, then there are a number of novella-related articles I've created that should probably be recatagorized, etc. 23skidoo 18:51, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good question, and a moot point. Personally I would have treated novellas as a "short" novel and thus part of the "general" project. I would bunch "novelettes" and "short stories" together as within scope of the "short story task force". It might be worth formalising this a bit on agreement to make things clear. I don't have a firm view on this, it is just how I think and have been working. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 08:43, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I guess it goes back to what is a novelette and what is a novella, I suppose. Going back to my personal "Wikiproject" re:The Saint, the average length of one of Charteris' novellas -- at least in terms of page count; I have no idea what the word count would be -- is between 60 and 100 pages, which obviously varies depending on the typeface, etc. used in a particular edition. One novella was even later republished in the 1970s on its own as a full and separate "novel". It's no big deal in the long run. 23skidoo 14:38, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I second Kevin with the groupings of novellas and novellettes. I do think that perhaps we need to get an agreement on what's a novelette, what's a novella, and what's a novel (e.g. short story is <a pages, novellette is a-b pages, novella is b-c, and novel is >c) for future simplification (you never know what's going to start an edit war, sadly). -Elizabennet | talk 16:58, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Difficult one to set in stone, I would tend to go with "popular usage" but if there needs to be a guideline the definitions in the wiki articles lead to :-

• Novels = greather than 40,000 words
• Novellas = 17,501 to 40,000 words
• Novelettes = 7,501 words to 17,500 words
• Short stories = less than 7,500 words

However due to a loose popular usage beyond such boundaries perhaps we should use the commonly used term for the item and then say something like ".... or novelette length" if the word cound is in that range. Also the problem would be researching what the word count is for a piece, not sure how many times I cound and read at the same time! :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 09:27, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We soon could do with a Short story article pattern template and maybe a different one for Short story collections and anthologies. Ideally based on the style of the "novel" example but probably trimmed and tuned to "short story" requirements. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 09:06, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On the short story collections categories: I was wondering if we should add a category for Stephen King short story collections. He has a few, but I'm not sure if the category is necessary; thoughts? -Elizabennet | talk 16:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Hmm, He has 14 books in Category:Short story collections by Stephen King and loads in Category:Short stories by Stephen King not to mention his novels i think that is enough. I'm sure he's going to keep writing them. It does raise another question about Category unifomity like was discussed in the Novels talk page. Should we have it as Category:Short Story collections by XXXX or Category:XXXX short story collections? Jask99 19:11, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Std name already established, if missing it should be Category:Short story collections by Stephen King, go for it! :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 09:01, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to help with short stories by Edgar Allan Poe - in fact, I'm willing to take care of all of them - but I'm not sure how well the infobox works (maybe I'm not understanding it). For example, "Released in" implies it was in an anthology, but all of his first printings were in magazines... which would also be the "Published by" line... I think. And I'm confused by "Media type," "Preceded by" and "Followed by." Should I leave those out? Midnightdreary 16:29, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Released in - should give the "name" of the publication it first was published in - in your example the name of the magazine.

Published by - should give the initial publisher's name - (not quite the same thing as the mugazine name - normally)

Media type - should give the forms it is available in ie. "Print (Magazine, Hardback, Paperback) & E-Book" for example.

Admittedly it is difficult to come up with terms that are clearly used by everone as across the planet we are so "loose" with our terminology. Anymore questions!? :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 17:25, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think we're getting somewhere. I'll see what I can do later tonight or maybe tomorrow. Someone keep an eye on me and make sure I don't mess up. :) Midnightdreary 17:54, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a specific location we should be putting WikiSources? I've been putting them under the Summary section as opposed to External Links. Midnightdreary 17:43, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was just looking through the article for the The Green Hills of Earth (short story collection). All of the stories in that collection have a seperate article, several of which are only a paragraph or two summarizing the plot. All of these stories have been republished in other places many in another collection The Past Through Tomorrow. But does that make them worthy of an article?

I am tending towards no, and I would like to cull some of the full articles back into descriptions in the articles for the collections. But I would like to hear what other think before I do anything. Andrew Sullivan Cant 06:00, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

normal notability rules would apply although, short stories tend to be less visible outside of a collection or anthology than full novels. Criticism, reviews, citations etc are all still needed. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 08:42, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've recently begun looking for short stories that needed a firm hand and a good copy-editing job, and over the past couple days I've worked extensively on both Mimsy were the Borogoves and Stephen King's The Body (novella). Mimsy stands to receive a fair amount of attention once its film adaptation (The Last Mimzy) is released in the US tomorrow, and The Body was dismal before today. Because this task force is still relatively new, I wasn't sure how we're supposed to go about asking for second opinions/peer reviews, and I would definitely love some involvement in either or both of these articles, so I'm posting here for lack of better options. If anyone can lend a hand, certainly someone who has been a part of this task force longer than I have (just joined today!), that would be great. I'm still on the lookout for other clean-up jobs, as well, so hope to see everyone around. :) María: (habla conmigo) 21:38, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've had a look at both and they are coming on. The main need I can see is for "in-line" citation (i.e. footnotes) and references, particularly on the "King" novella which doesn't have any!. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 09:01, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest (at least for the present) that any requests for peer review go to the main "Novels" project peer review. At least we can start there. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 09:01, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We have pattern templates for standard novel articles, and fictional characters. As we have numerous short story articles now tagged it is probably about time we established a "Short Story" pattern template. Something like the "Novels" one but tuned more to the needs of the short story. This may lead to a "Short story collection" one. Thoughts please. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 15:16, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely! I'm running into a lot of them that are such a mish-mash of info, some kind of uniform template would be fabulous. I'd also like to see the infobox in a more accessible place; I always end up losing it, wherever it is. Nevermind, it's to the right; I'm an idiot. :) María: (habla conmigo) 17:15, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. With the fine-tuning, though, I'd suggest keeping it simple as (no offense) short stories tend to be simpler than novels. The fewer sections, for example, the less likely we'll have empty or mostly empty spaces. :) Midnightdreary 17:22, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

None taken, heh. I agree that the template would be more condensed. Looking at the novel template, I can see that short stories may not need both a plot summary and intro, since short stories and novellas are generally much shorter and do not need extensive plot explanations. Other than that, themes, allusions, trivia, adaptations... these things may apply to some lengthy articles, but not to others. María: (habla conmigo) 17:33, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would be interested in working on short stories by Katherine Mansfield perhaps. Her page doesn't have a list of all her short stories, which I think could be interesting. Not sure where this can be found though. I could start a list from the 'Selected Stories' in Oxford World's Classics, that I have...Then create a page for each story, with a plot summary...Anyway, although her page doesn't have a list of all she wrote, I have retrieved this [1] from [2]...That would be a bit of work though, it would be good if I wasn't the only one on to this goal.Zigzig20s 16:23, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]