Talk:Amber and Iron

Clean up

It is not necessary to write everything about the book, just the highlights, and the chapter list. You may notice you are writing too much when you begin including dialogs. A good layout would be having a small introduction (two or three paragraphs), and the list of chapters with two or three lines describing each chapter. -- ReyBrujo 16:31, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

There are a lot of pivotal and crucial events in this book, as I am sure you know. I will finish the article now and weed it out a bit, but I am going to be keeping a bulk of the information since it is truly pertinent to the series and the world of Krynn in general. --Moeron 16:56, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I am not against it. But as I said, when the characters are quoted, or when there are too many annotations, the article is becoming too long. I repeat, it is not necessary to describe everything that happens in the book, but to give an idea to the casual reader of what the book is about, stating the most important points. You don't need to spin how "someone travelled from here to there to get an item, then from there to another part to fetch a book, and then to another side to meet with someone", but instead state that a meeting took place _if_ the meeting is important. -- ReyBrujo 17:08, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I finished the summary. Tell me here what you feel is not nessacary here and we can discuss it and why it is important and then edit to fit better.--Moeron 17:25, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

To give you an example:

Rhys is trying to escape from the abode of the death knight, Auseric Krell. Rhys has succeeded in fulfilling Zeboim's request to steal back the soul of her son, fellow death knight Ariakan, who was imprisoned by Chemosh in a khas piece (similar to chess). After fleeing, Rhys gives Zeboim her son's soul and she sends Nightshade and Rhys back to Solace where they first encountered Zeboim in the city jail. Auseric, knowing Chemosh will be angered he let Ariakan's soul to be stolen away by one of Zebomin's followers, tries to find a place to hide within his castle.

Back in Solace, Gerard, the Solace sheriff, is startled when Rhys and Nightshade appear out of nowhere into the middle of a busy street. Rhys cofides in Gerard his recent adventures, to which Gerard seeks others for counsel about the impending Beloved situation. Gerard also revels that Rhys' staff, a magical artifact given to him with Majere's blessing, has showed back up mysteriously while Rhys was away. Rhys begins to wonder why his former god still has faith in him, even though he is now a follower of Zeboim . Rhys agrees with Gerard to stay in Solace and returns to the Inn of the Last Home.

• It doesn't matter whether Rhys was escaping or hunting Krell, the fact that he managed to fulfill Zeboim's request is what matters.
• It doesn't matter where Chemosh imprisoned Ariakan, only that he was imprisoned.
• It doesn't matter that Zeboim, Nightshade and Rhys first met Zeboim in Solace.
• It doesn't matter that Krell hides in the castle, as it has no consequence in the following chapters.
• It doesn't matter that they surprise Gerard, only that they meet him.
• Beloved situation? Which situation? A casual reader does not know about that.
• Does it matter what Rhys thinks about Majere's faith?
• It doesn't matter that Rhys is carrying a staff that showed back up mysteriously, only that he is carrying it.
• Does it matter where they stay, if in the Inn or in Gerard's house?

I would change all that to

Per Zeboim's request, Rhys, former follower of Majere, stole the soul of her son and now death knight Ariakan from Chemosh, returning it to her. He then returned with Nightshade to Solace, where they meet Gerard, the current sheriff. After being told the truth of their adventures, Gerard decides to help them in the upcoming situation.

What do you think? -- ReyBrujo 18:03, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I am going to create two sections; a summary and an expanded overview. This is what I have done before with television show episodes and other books on the site. I will make the summary quick, to the point, and easy to understand for someone just perusing the page to get an idea of the novel. Will that be satisfactory. Also, I will put answer those questions more succinctly in the expanded overview. Also, why did you nix the product summary provided from Wizards of the Coast and Amazon? I have been told that as long as you cite where the product overview comes from, that is quite a good addition for the beginning on article, since this is one of the first things people read on a website or back of a book. --Moeron 19:36, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I have changed my mind. I am removing everything that I have put up about this book. I would appreciate if you do not put any of my summary back up. Perhaps sometime in the future I will come back and look over whatever someone else puts in it's place. --Moeron 19:46, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Copying text verbatim from a site that has not released it under the GFDL or another open source license is not fair use, and can be considered copyright violation. As for your text, you have agreed to license it under such license, and thus anyone can put it back in the article. However, I will not do that. -- ReyBrujo 19:52, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, I understand what you mean. As for me, I will no longer be checking this entry, so if you want to put it back up feel free. Thanks for the push in the right direction.--Moeron 20:07, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Why has User:Moeron gotten so much flack for creating such an indepth article when other highlighted Dragonlance books, especially Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Dragons of Winter Night, Dragons of Spring Dawning got into even more detail then he went in with this book? Should there be some correlative policy between this and those? I love the wealth of information I found at those other books, and reading through the editing history here, I really would like to see the stuff reinstated. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.42.90.231 (talk • contribs) .

First, this was the first article to be expanded so much, and I took my time explaining him why it needed to be shortened. I suggested some steps to shortening the article, but I did not impose any rule. Note that, even though the rules suggest you can modify everything, I decided not to do that, after seeing all the hard work he put into the article. Unluckily, he decided not to continue working in the article, which is a real pity. Again, I would not force him to shorten the article after all the hard work he put into the article.

If you check the Talk:Dragons of Autumn Twilight, I have explained there why that article should be shortened. The information about a book should include not only the summary, but also information about the process to create the book, editions, critical reception, etc. DoAT is currently a _huge_ summary of the book. My idea of a good commercial book summary are 8-10 paragraphs of around 3-4 lines each, going straight to the matter. The casual reader should get the important points, not all the subplots that are inside the book if they are not necessary to know, otherwise there would be no need of buying the book at all. Also, note that in Talk:Dragons of Winter Night I posted on April 3, over a month ago, and since the creation of the article, I have only corrected wikilinks. I don't want to shorten that information because both Theincrediblehuck and Maelwys may be hurt after having put so much effort that someone else arrives and deletes a good chunk without discussing first.

Remember, this is an encyclopedia. It is not necessary to write a long summary when a shorter one is enough. That is my suggestion for this, DoAT, DoWN and DoSD articles. If you want to reinsert the previous summary, be bold and do it. I am not doing that because Moeron asked me not to do it. -- ReyBrujo 05:36, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Reworking

Thank you for the kind words, an User:63.42.90.231. I understand now where ReyBrujo is coming from and have decided to return with a more "streamlined" approach. Essentially, I will use the actual guidelines at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels/ArticleTemplate. I will be working on this over the next week (along with other projects) in my sandbox, so if you want to check out User:Moeron/Sandbox01, you may see my progress. Cheers! --MOE.RON ^{talk | done | doing} 14:34, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

It's too short

It's too short what about a synopsys what about Mina's goddesshood it is cruicial! Jamhaw 21:11, 12 May 2006 (UTC)jamhaw

New revision 5/15/06

Okay ... so there you go. My new revision of the page as per the Wikiproject Novels template. The only thing I am a little weary about is the abundance of Characters. Feel free to add/ammend/edit/ect. these sections. I hope you enjoy this new working! --MOE.RON ^{talk | done | doing} 05:01, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Quite a bit better than the previous one, good work! Thanks for deciding to come back too! Just a thought. Can the Plot introduction section be considered a spoiler as is now for someone who has never read the book? Also, about the characters, several of these will have to be moved to Amber and Ashes once that article is expanded. I believe only characters that are presented in the book need an extended paragraph, thus once Amber and Ashes is created, some of these characters can be moved there (shortening the size of this section here). -- ReyBrujo 03:35, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Also, I think the Beloved could be merged into List of Dragonlance creatures. -- ReyBrujo 03:38, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Leaving the page nagged at me for the past month or so; I had to do something. Now I am back with a better understanding/handle on Wikipedia, with the {{template:novel}} in hand.

• I see what you mean about the plot introduction and if you wish to move the spoiler up, I agree with your action.
• Character - Agree with you totally. Once that is done on Amber and Ashes, we can just leave the information pertinent to Amber and Iron here. Could then add something like a For more details on character information that happened in Amber and Ashes, see Characters.

--MOE.RON ^{talk | done | doing} 03:51, 17 May 2006 (UTC)