The Manual of Style is an official policy of the Sword of Truth Wiki that all editors must abide by. It seeks to ensure that the wiki remains uniform and runs smoothly.
For information on the most basic writing techniques and styles, which are used here, see Wikipedia's Manual of Style.
Introductions[]
The introduction to an article resides above any and all sections, and possibly under an infobox. The introduction has the following requirements:
- Introductions must describe the character as first introduced by both series.
- If the character drastically differs between the Sword of Truth series and the Legend of the Seeker, then another article should be created with "(Legend of the Seeker)" suffixed to the end. For instance, Sebastian differs completely from Sebastian (Legend of the Seeker).
- Introductions to articles must contain no spoilers.
Tense[]
Canon articles[]
When writing canon articles, the past tense should always be used ("Richard was the Seeker of Truth", rather than "Richard is the Seeker of Truth").
Generally, articles on the Sword of Truth Wiki should not be excessively wordy. This does not by any means forbid users from utilizing strong vocabulary, however, excessively long blocks of text become overwhelming to readers who expect an abbreviated synopsis or description. The goal is not to reword the text of the series, rather it is to paraphrase and condense the information. Be inventive, but be concise.
Book chapters[]
When writing synopses, the present tense, or more specifically the literary present, should always be used ("First, Richard goes to the Old World. Next...", rather than "First, Richard went to the Old World. Next...").
The present tense (literary present) should always be used when talking about, or summarizing, a literary work. Since chapter articles are fragmented summaries of an entire work, they too should be written in the present (literary present) tense.
Characters[]
All character articles should be structured as follows. Exact capitalization should be maintained for each section.
- Introduction
- Characteristics (Physical description of the character)
- Personality
- Sword of Truth series
- History (What happened to the character before the character's first appearance in the series)
- Plot by book
- After the series (Anything revealed by Terry Goodkind about the character after the character's last appearance in the series)
- Legend of the Seeker (when applicable)
- History (What happened to the character before Legend of the Seeker began)
- Plot by episode
- Behind the scenes (Anything relating to the actors, deleted scenes, etc.)
- Abilities (Whether mental, physical, or magical)
- Development (How the character changed throughout the series)
- Appearances (Use {{1st}} for 1st appearance and {{Mentioned}} if they are only mentioned.)
- References
- See also
- External links
The footer is not a section and technically resides within the last section of the article (usually external links). The footer can contain any of the following:
- Special templates
- Navboxes
- Categories
Note[]
If there is not sufficient information on a character to fill out a section (i.e. Introduction, Abilities, Personality, etc.) that section should be left out of the page structure. We are attempting to cut down on stub articles on the Sword of Truth Wiki, which means that every blank section does not merit a {{Section stub}} template. Just simply leave the section out and fill in the relevant sections.
Naming articles[]
There are some rules regarding how articles on the wiki should be named.
- Article names should be in singular form, not plural, unless referring to a culture or group as a whole.
- The titles of characters' articles should be the full name of that character when first introduced and without spoilers. For instance:
- Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander is the proper name of Zedd, so Zedd should not be used as a title.
- Richard Cypher should not be Richard Rahl, as that contains a spoiler.
- Kahlan Amnell should not be Kahlan Rahl, as she becomes a Rahl later in the series.
- Titles, such as military ranks or titles of nobility, should be omitted.
- Unless the name of the article contains (or is) a proper noun, none of the words should be capitalized.
- For articles without a known canonical name, use "unidentified" with no category piping. For Example, using "Unidentified Confessor" as the title and Category:Confessors for the category. The title starts with "unidentified," and the lack of piping in the category means, by default, it is categorized under "U" in the "Confessors" category.
Ambiguous titles[]
In the case of ambiguous titles, the first title introduced in the series will take the preeminent page. For instance, Confessors are introduced before the Confessor book, so the former holds the title. In contrast, Pillars of Creation, the book, is introduced before the place of the same name, so the book takes precedence.
Perspective[]
In-universe[]
If something is in-universe, or is described as such, it belongs to the Sword of Truth series universe exclusively and not to the real world. Characters, for example, are in-universe, but the actors who play them in Legend of the Seeker are out-of-universe.
Behind the scenes is the only appropriate section and subsections of an in-universe article to have out-of-universe content. See below for more details.
Out-of-universe[]
Out-of-Universe refers to the perspective in which an article is written: it is the opposite of in-universe. Something written from an out-of-universe (OOU) perspective is written from a real life point of view. It will refer, for example, to real life publications, actors, events, and so on, acknowledging that its subject is fictional. In contrast, an in-universe perspective will strive for verisimilitude; that is, it will be written as though the author existed within the Sword of Truth universe. Articles about any in-universe things, such as characters, vehicles, terminology, or species, should always be written from an in-universe perspective. If a section in the article is not, such as the listing of a character's published appearances or behind the scenes details, it should be tagged as such.