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User talk:Claire Monk

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Welcome!

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A cup of warm tea to welcome you!

Hello, ClaireMonk, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{Help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! We're so glad you're here! Sadads (talk) 01:25, 7 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Heritage film

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Great job at expanding the article last year. Sorry it took so long to get recognized. I left some links above that might help you find some other ways to improve similar or related articles, Sadads (talk) 01:25, 7 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Plot size

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At Maurice (novel), I removed your large plot addition. The guideline at WP:NOVELPLOT says 700 words is the usual upper limit on the plot section. Even if the novel's plot was especially complicated the Wikipedia plot section should not overbalance the rest of the article. I use an online word counter tool to help me get the size right; there are several out there, free of charge. Binksternet (talk) 23:00, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, Binksternet I made my plot addition at night and I missed the guidance about word count, so thanks for this! I initially started to edit the Maurice (novel) plot synopsis because the existing synopsis is inaccurate. (In particular, the claim that Maurice calls out of the window *to Clive* is plain wrong.) But I then realised how far the plot of Forster’s novel is *not* represented in the existing summary: this reads as if it’s significantly based on the film, which omits some of the novel’s significant sections, characters and developments. So I was trying to re-write a summary which more accurately reflects those novel/film differences. (If you Google me, you’ll appreciate that I know both very well indeed.) It’s a shame there’s not slightly more space for this. Even my too-long summary omits significant characters and episodes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ClaireMonk (talk • contribs)
It is certainly frustrating to try and convey the depth of an author's work inside of 700 words. I should say it cannot be done. But we can hint at it, and hope that the Wikipedia reader will become a reader of the novel in question.
Think of it this way: the better you convey the plot, the less likely the person will feel the need to read the book. An unproven thesis, but arguable.
This is the online tool I use to keep track of word count.
Cheers from Oakland, California. Me and the missus tramped through the UK for three weeks in 2011 but we never saw Leicester. Closest was Cambridge or Ely. Binksternet (talk) 23:47, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again re. the guidance about word count. I can see that you seem to have reversed *all* my editing changes, including my factual corrections to the opening section – not solely my corrections and expansions to the plot synopsis. Does this mean that Wikipedia prefers factual inaccuracy? Or the best practice for me to return and re-make small corrections which do not unduly expand the word count?

For example, I know of no documented evidence that D. H. Lawrence saw Forster’s unpublished manuscript of Maurice in any of its forms. *If* there is genuine evidence, that should be cited. Dixie King’s article (listed as the source for this claim) develops a speculative argument based on inference, but (when read closely) cites no concrete primary evidence. And, when the primary sources are examined, there is no evidence for this claim. Neither the letters between Forster and DHL published in Lago & Furbank (Eds) Selected Letters of E.M. Forster Volume One (1983) or Volume Two (1985), nor Forster’s wider correspondence and diaries in which he discusses DHL with other friends, make any reference to Maurice or to sharing the Maurice manuscript with DHL. In contrast, during the same period, there are many other letters in which Forster *does* discuss Maurice with *other* friends with whom he *has* shared various copies, and versions, of the manuscript.

In addition, the account of Forster’s (rather fractious and shortlived) friendship with D.H. Lawrence given by P.N. Furbank in his official Forster biography (and by all of Forster‘s biographers) makes it seem highly unlikely that Forster would have entrusted a Maurice manuscript to DHL. Their friendship was prickly, to say the least. DHL was openly critical of Forster, perceived his writing as spinsterish, and thought Forster needed robust sex with a woman to sort him out. i.e. DHL did not even understand that Forster was gay! Conversely, Forster perceived homosexual undertones in some of DHL’s works (e.g. The White Peacock) of which DHL himself seemed unconscious. As Wendy Moffat describes in her more recent Forster biography (2010), we know from Forster’s letters and diaries that he Forster shared his secret manuscript with close, trusted confidants, and their reactions to Maurice became a test of their friendship. DHL did not fall into that category.

It *is* possible that DHL heard about Maurice via a third party who had seen/read the manuscript. But, again, there is no primary historical evidence of this.

Forster *did* offer Maurice to his closer friend T.E. Lawrence to read, but TEL was terrified of the powerful effect it might have on him, and declined.

Please don't read so much into my reversion of your edits. Think Occam's razor. Think lazy and quick. But I've restored your changes now. Feel free to jump in there and rework it as needed. Binksternet (talk) 17:57, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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