Hello everyone, I've noticed lately that there has been some confusion among some of you regarding the standards to our new "Behind the scenes" section while we're making the transition from the "Trivia" section. I cannot entirely fault you guys with this as I realized that guidelines and formatting regarding it had not been clearly laid out, so I wish to explain how the two sections differ.
I find that in many cases, you guys merely change the title from "Trivia" to "Behind the scenes" which is actually not a complete conversion between the two sections. A "Behind the scenes" section is more than just a "Trivia" section with a different name or otherwise, what would be the difference? Rather, it is meant to be a fully-developed section in and of itself with proper organization. This, too, does not mean that one can merely remove the bullet points and call it a day because that is just a superficial change.
So without further ado, here are some ground rules:
- OOU and literary present tense
- While this was ambiguous in regards to Trivia section, "Behind the scenes" must always be written from an out-of-universe perspective. This means that we must switch gears and write using the literary present tense as opposed to the historical past tense we normally do in the body. In fact, one of the key reasons why we decided to make the change to BtS is because whether or not points should be written from an OOU or IU-perspective was often unclear and inconsistent when it came to trivia.
- Function of BtS
- BtS serves to detail the real-world context of the subject, such as its development and any significant lore inconsistencies surrounding it. It is not like trivia, a pool of random lore details, peculiarities, or gameplay information. The latter two can and should feature into BtS as well, but it should not be all random.
- Organized paragraphs
- BtS is essentially an OOU parallel to the body. What this means is that information should be compiled as though you were writing an actual article or essay which demands proper organization of thoughts. There should not be scattered disconnected statements like it is a list. There should be flow and cohesion throughout, and there should be well-defined paragraphs. Sometimes, some information really don't have connection to one another. In that case, they can be contained within separate paragraphs or subsections, but if we have nothing but five scattered points, then they share one thing in common: being miscellaneous information. Just like in essay writing, you need to organize them into a paragraph in some way, you must find a way with these points.
- Don't take for granted OOU information known about the subject
- Since BtS documents the real-world context of a subject in writing, it should not be taken for granted that it is known where that subject appears or what it is. For example, "Appearances" and "References" are sources for the subject, like our closest thing to a works cited page or bibliography, But in terms of the actual content, has it been mentioned that Ezio Auditore is the main protagonist of Assassin's Creed II? Has it been mentioned what games the Piece of Eden features in and in what context? Even if these information is obvious from a simple glance at the sources or is common knowledge, BtS is meant to reintroduce the subject from an OOU-perspective.
- Eagle Bearer, not Kassandra
- In the real-world context, the main protagonist/player character of Odyssey isn't necessarily Kassandra, it could be—as much as I hate to admit it—Alexios. Simultaneously, Deimos could be Kassandra. Kassandra is the canonical protagonist and should be treated as such in the body because we're writing from a lore-based in-universe perspective. But in the BtS, it's not about what is correct in the lore, but the facts of the game.
- Subsections not ;
- Formerly, we used the semi-colon (;) to create small subheadings in "Trivia" sections. Subheadings formed this way do not function as subsections which can be edited individually and were ideal for "Trivia" since it is too minor of a section to merit real subsections but sometimes needed some organization of information. This is not the case for BtS, which should have real subsections where appropriate formed by === ===
- Truly trivia
- Trivia also serves as a pool for information that can or should be fit into the body, but we have yet to find a place for it. The problem is that BtS can't serve that same function. Sometimes those information are all lore-based points which there really is nothing necessarily OOU about them. I just came across this in the Isabelle Ardant article where I really didn't find what details are in her office to be OOU-noteworthy at all. In instances like this, I'm not sure how to organize that information, and I'm thinking maybe there would need to be a Trivia subsection in exceptional cases specifically for information we haven't sorted into the body yet.
I hope this clarifies for everyone the functions and standards of BtS. The main point is that while we should ideally be converting every "Trivia" section to "Behind the scenes", simply changing the name of the section is not an actual conversion and just results in a Trivia section mis-named. If we carry out a conversion of the section, we have to take it all the way or at least so that it's passable as a BtS section. Please let me know if you guys have any questions or confusion!