Talk:Crime fiction

Originally, until 2 January 2003, this was the entry on crime fiction:

Crime fiction involves criminality, but is not categorisable as detective fiction because the crimes are perpetrated by the main character(s) in full view of the reader. The caper subgenre is closely related.

Some examples of crime or caper fiction are :

the Modesty Blaise stories of Peter O'Donnell
novels of John Boland such as The League of Gentlemen and The Golden Fleece
the screenplay of The Thomas Crown Affair by Alan Trustman
novel and screenplay of Ocean's Eleven by George Clayton Johnson and Jack Golden Russell
Sledgehammer by Walter Wager

Some of the names and titles above may be useful for future reference.

Note: as of 18 January 2003, something very like the above has found a home at caper novel -- Paul A

Lee M states that "Sections of the following article need rewriting as they are too POV", but he does not tell us which sections. I've tried to figure out possible reasons for his surprising taciturnity in this matter.

(1) He wants to test his fellow Wikipedians: Who can find the incriminating passages? What will they do once they have spotted a POV sentence? Will they agree on what is NPOV and what isn't?
(2) He is planning to correct the POV passages himself and has just failed to mention it.
(3) He just can't be bothered.

KF 01:40, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Is there any way to split this into multiple articles? It seems too long. - user:zanimum

It seems too long? Please reconsider your wish after you have read the article. There are cross-references throughout the text which would be completely pointless if they were in separate articles. --KF 19:39, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I am removing

The following introduction to crime fiction in English is targeted at the newcomer to this for many people delightful genre rather than at the specialist. It is blatantly incomplete, ignoring some of the most important figures in the evolution of the genre. However, rather than aiming at completeness, its intention is to gently guide the novice into the world of crime fiction by explaining the development of the various forms of crime writing in the course of the 20th century, by including relevant background information, and by referring to some representative examples.

Why is this needed? An encyclopedia is not a personal essay book IMO. Any novice should learn everything about crime fiction, just by coming to the relevant encyclopediac article. Yes, he will not get a "complete picture". Everything that was said, goes without saying. I felt this passage contributes to an already needlessly lengthy article.chance 09:30, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)

I am starting a major restructuring of the article, as suggested in Cleanup. I have already edited the first and second sections, and added relevant content elsewhere. (Eg. Content has been redistributed to Locked Room Mystery, Dr. Watson, The Hollow Man etc.) To my knowledge I have not DELETED CONTENT majorly, in a way that affects the flow of the article. Some feedback from users will be appreciated. Users are invited to join me in making this article (a good, detailed effort...albeit a bit lengthy) into something more readable and interesting. chance 11:19, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)

The article has it stands is far too long and reads like an well written but unstructured essay. It needs to majorly refactored. It has very good material, but it is attempting to be everything in just one article. If I was doing it I would reduce the main article ruthlessly after moving most of the text to different articles. I would use this article to talk about what crime fiction is, and move the extensive material on the History of Crime Fiction and Crime film to independent articles. In fact I'll do so now so the material doesn't get lost during your needed rewrite

ChrisG 14:21, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I've moved the material to different articles and I think they stand on their on feet as articles. Obviously you may well want to move some or all of this material back into the main article to rewrite it. I moved rather than copied the material, so people could see how the article looked without that material. : ChrisG 14:43, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I've also moved substantial specific material to detective fiction and whodunit where it seems to more specific and relevant. I hope people generally believe the refactoring I have done is appropriate. Out of the refactoring we've gained two new articles and substantially improved two others in terms of content and we have a simpler article on crime fiction, so I think we are well ahead. Obviously crime fiction has now been reduced to a shell of what it was, and some of the material I have moved may well be worth moving back here or recovering from the page history. : ChrisG 16:07, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for informing me of the changes in the crime fiction article. I'm perfectly aware that this is Wikipedia territory, so of course anyone is welcome to make any changes they consider an improvement. Don't expect me to approve of them: If I had intended the text differently, I would have written it differently.

I've seen it before: people either merging articles or splitting them up (for example the article I started a long time ago at Millennialism), seemingly at random. You know what, until you mentioned it I didn't even know that there was a "Cleanup" department (I couldn't find crime fiction listed there!). I understand there was one request (just one?!) that the article be split up -- and that is all it needs for some willing executioners to lend a helping hand? Are you aware of the fact that someone also added it to Wikipedia:Brilliant prose?

I do hope that there won't be some fool who deletes the older versions of the crime fiction article or who demands their deletion.

Once again, good luck to all of you. --KF 15:58, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

PS What on earth is a criminial novel? Do you really think what you're doing is an improvement? --KF

KF,

As I've said above I do think the article is an improvement, or rather it can now evolve into a better article. I think your article was extremely well written, but was too long and unstructured. It also had the flaw that it often talked as if detective fiction and whodunit's equalled crime fiction. My poorly labelled reference to criminial novels was to reflect the fact that novels like the Godfather, which are told from the criminial perspective are also labelled under crime. Perhaps social novels would be better. Within the article there are references to the difficulty of defining where crime novels end. Please note I've moved your material wholesale to four different articles, because I didn't want Wikipedia to lose such quality material : ChrisG 16:29, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Great. Thanks. Actually, all I was trying to find out was if there's a word criminial. I'm serious. --KF 16:44, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)