Lots of people try to write Wikipedia articles about works of fiction (WoFs). And lots of people fail, and then their articles get deleted and they get upset.
The purpose of this page is to teach you how to do it right.
The first step in writing an article about a WoF is NOT to read the work of fiction several times until you know it deeply and profoundly and can provide many brilliant insights about its meaning. I've written Wikipedia articles about WoFs that I haven't finished reading. I've written Wikipedia articles about WofS that I never even started reading. I've even written articles about WoFs that, at the time, hadn't been published yet.
When I write about a WoF, I try to make three clusters of information.
- a statement of what the WoF is. [Title] is a [genre] novel/shortstory/whatever by [author]. It was first published in [venue], in (year). And then, if you can compress it enough, a single sentence that very lightly touches on the theme. If you can't compress it into a single sentence that's not a run-on, then leave it out. You can toss in a tiny historical note if applicable - "it was [author]'s first published work", or "it was written as a direct reply to [something else]".
- a synopsis. For this, it helps to have read the WoF completely. If you haven't read it completely, you can still do a synopsis based on what you know... but a synopsis of the WoF is not essential for a Wikipedia article (pardon the pun).
- a Reception section. This is crucial. If you don't have a reception section, then you aren't showing notability.