Talk:Blue Ruin

Plot summary

The original plot summary was well within the 700 word limit of WP:FILMPLOT, and I see absolutely no reason to replace it with one that is barely within the 400 word minimum. Is there a good reason that we should replace it? NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 00:01, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

The reason is that good writing should contain no unnecessary words or details. I understand the previous version was within the recommend word length, but unnecessary words make articles worse. For example:

• "A policewoman finds Dwight and tells him that Wade Cleland..." We don't need to say she "finds Dwight" because she obviously needs to find him to tell him about Cleland. The sentence makes total sense without "finds Dwight" and no information is lost.
• "Dwight confronts Wade in a club's rest room and after a brief fight, fatally stabs him in the temple." We don't need to say "confronts Wade" because stabbing him in the knife is a confrontation. We also don't really need to say where in his body he was stabbed. The important bit is that he tracks him down and stabs him.
• "Because of this, Sam takes her two daughters and flees the area." The sentence makes just as much sense without "Because of this", so it can be removed. Do you see what I mean?

Now, there are a few plot details I've removed that you might want to re-add; for example, that Wade and Dwight have a brief fight before the stabbing. You also might argue that we should know the reason why he escapes in the limo, which I removed. It's cool if you want to add those back in, but the previous version had a lot of unnecessary words, so I urge you to compare it carefully before you revert outright. Popcornduff (talk) 00:07, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and re-added a couple of plot points. Popcornduff (talk) 00:14, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

I regularly work to trim down plot summaries after they've been bloated, but this was one was perfectly fine. No, I don't like your version, and I'd like for you to respect that it was rejected. Stop edit warring to re-instate it. You should revert back to the old version and wait for consensus for your changes, per WP:BRD. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 00:20, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

You haven't come up with any account of why the previous version was better, or even why you don't like mine, but OK. If you reinstate your version I won't contest it; my near year's resolution is to back away from angry editors. :) Popcornduff (talk) 00:24, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

I'd also like to add, if it helps, that the previous version was hardly bad. My main activity of Wikipedia (and my job!) is copy editing, so I routinely remove what I see as redundancy from everything I read here. In that case that meant trimming this article even though it was already within the recommended plot length. I've made the mistake before of arguing back and forth about small changes like these when there are bigger fish to fry, so knock yourself out. Popcornduff (talk) 00:30, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

For one thing, it's full of short, choppy sentences. Other parts are now near-nonsensical. "William enters through another door and shoots Dwight with a shotgun. Dwight tells him he has "done his job" and asks him to leave with his car, saying that they are half-brothers." Huh? What job as William done? Why is Dwight congratulating him? I'm honestly not that keen on the grammar or sentence structure, either. "he places his unconscious body in his car" sounds like Dwight placed his own unconscious body in the car. The older version was not perfect, but it was significantly better. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 00:34, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

You're quite right about the William thing. The simplest solution is to remove the "done his job" line as we can surmise from the previous sentence that Dwight is now hurt, but something tells me you won't like it. You can easily fix "his unconscious body in the car" by specifying "Teddy's unconscious body".

My sentences are short, but the previous version contains epics like "While he escapes, Dwight realizes he dropped his car keys in the rest room, so he steals the Clelands' limousine, which Dwight discovers has a teenage boy, William, as a passenger; after a brief chat, Dwight stops and lets him out."

I suspect the best version lies between your solution and mine, so some collaboration might be a better idea? :) Popcornduff (talk) 00:39, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

I never saw the point of the "done his job" line, but I left it in. I've been working on this plot summary in the past few days, and it's been coming along alright. I streamlined it down to ~650 words, got rid of quite a few (but not all) redundancies, and have been working to further copy edit it. I don't see any reason to gut it. You know what plot summaries need to be gutted? The ones that are over 1500 words. There was even a Salon or Slate story about the top ten longest plot summaries on Wikipedia. I streamlined most of them down to a compliant version. There are still a few left. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 01:37, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

To be honest, I've never really bought the "there are more important things to edit" argument because I think Wiki editors should edit wherever they're interested in enough to make a difference to. Having said that, I've definitely been guilty in the past of arguing stuff way beyond the point of constructiveness - because even though I think my edits are better (or else I wouldn't have made them!) it's way too easy to waste time arguing instead of doing anything useful.

So I won't do that again - I've made my case. I recommend you either take my version as a base and re-add whatever you think is missing, in which case I can help you out if you're up for it (I'm probably more flexible than you think), or just slash and burn the whole thing, and I won't stop you. But man, you really don't need that "Because of this". ;) Popcornduff (talk) 01:49, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, it's been a few days, and it seems as though nobody cares but me. So, I'll admit that maybe I overreacted. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 22:10, 18 January 2015 (UTC)