UTW:Beginner's guide

If you are joining UnTrash Wiki for the first time or have problems understanding how the wiki works, this page is here to steer you in the right direction. Knowing the rules can keep you from doing something wrong and getting banned, not knowing why. If you have any questions that this page doesn't answer, always feel free to ask a moderator for help.

The Very, Very Basic Rudiments of UnTrash Wiki
UnTrash Wiki, at its core, is a website about fiction and the roles, tropes, plots, and other various elements that make it what it is. Inspired by TV Troupes, UnTrash Wiki strives to cover as many of these fictional elements as possible using language simple enough for a newcomer to grasp without having to read twenty other pages just to understand one. It also gives in-depth explanations to the numerous topics inside the sphere of fiction. To make reading more interesting, the wiki also uses examples from real-life franchises to further help its readers understand the world of fiction. Another one of our goals is to give writers new ideas for how to create and add to their own worlds. We do this by explaining the logical events that could come before or after an UnTrash is played, even if those events haven't been done in any story before. In the end, UnTrash Wiki is meant to be a universally accessible source for information on story-writing anyone can enjoy.

How to Edit on UnTrash Wiki
If you'd like to help UnTrash Wiki grow by becoming one of its editors, then you can start by reading on how each page type is structured. The sections below are about the types of pages there are on UnTrash Wiki to know how they're built and what their writing style is expected to be like. You can alternatively open a page and learn from example if being told how to write isn't for you.

UnTrash pages
"UnTrash" is a name we have given to tropes and trope-like elements. They are the core of this site and stand as the sphere most of fiction centers itself around. An example of an UnTrash is All Just A Dream. This page is a model for other pages to be written in the future, being complete in every way: applied slidetext, a lengthy but basic definition, examples from fiction, notes listed at the bottom of the page, and a See also section. Both the See also and notes sections are optional — UnTrash pages do not need these two on them to be considered complete. All Just A Dream's page comes with other features like UnRec, Mirrors, and UnStats, all of which are explained in greater depth here. If you're planning on creating an UnTrash page, you write the first letter of every word in the title in its uppercase form. This also applies when you create a new red link to a nonexistent page.

Role pages
Roles are the character types a person can become in the story. Examples of roles are the Traitor, the Ace, and the Bully. Roles are the most important part of any story. They're the driving force that starts, continues, and ends whatever work of fiction they're in. There are three umbrellas under which roles can be placed: protagonist, antagonist, and neutragonist. Protagonists and antagonists are the two sides of a story that fight against each other and do what they can to become victorious in the story's conclusion. "Neutragonist" is a term UnTrash uses to describe any role that traditionally portrayed as neither good nor evil. These roles often have little or no impact on the overall story, are minor (meaning they show up for a short amount of time or hardly show up at all), and are less developed in character than the main characters of the story are. If you want to see what a complete role page looks like, visit this or this. Like a well-built UnTrash article, a role article will be filled with information that explains what its topic is about. It also has the sections Mirrors, UnTask Description, and UnStats. It tells the reader what the role may try to achieve, like how the Villain might want to enact an Evil Scheme and how they traditionally go about approaching this.

Plot pages
Plots are recurring stories for fiction, mainly TV shows. A plot page should be written to be applicable to many stories that fall under the description of the plot, meaning it should use a universal description of the plot it's about. Plot pages on UnTrash are Boy Who Cried Wolf and New Sibling. If you visit either page, you will notice how they have the two sections titled Intro and Plot Sample. The Intro is much like the introduction to a role or UnTrash page while the Plot Sample section introduces a made-up example of the plot to the reader that demonstrates how that plot is normally played. To complete a plot page, there should be a third section titled Examples of [plot title] that contains plots from real-life fiction.

Franchise pages
Franchises are real-life copyrighted entities owned by companies such as Nintendo, Marvel, Disney, DreamWorks, and Warner Bros.. They range from comic books to video games to anime to TV series. It's best that you write a franchise page similarly to how Wikipedia would: include facts, important related events, and a short description of what the franchise is about. A quality franchise page excludes any opinions, either personal or widely shared. You don't need to write too much insightful information on the page as UnTrash Wiki isn't dedicated to that single franchise. Just write what you need to and don't put too much pressure on yourself to write a fantastic page in one go.

Quick Vocab Definitions
Since UnTrash uses some jargon of its own that might not make immediate sense to you, here is a list of words you're bound to see at least once during your visit on UnTrash. Most of these definitions are expounded on this page.

Mirror: A list of different possibilities for how UnTrashes and roles can be played. For UnTrashes, the list goes Basic, Reinforced, Downplayed, Negated, Justified, Inverted, Gleeful, Dismal, and Zip. Roles have Nutshell, Enhanced, Cruel, Inverse, Atypical, Up, Down, Back, Forth, and Wrong.

Play: Not to be confused with "playing" or theater. A play is a certain way an UnTrash appears in fiction. It can also refer to how a role is built specifically to one character. UnTrash Wiki didn't create this term, but it's still useful to know what "playing" means.

Slidetext: A short remark that is put at the top of any UnTrash or role page that's related to the page's subject. Slidetext, if it's written in a single line (as it normally should be), should be like this, this, or this. If you're feeling fancy, feel free to write something like this or this for your slidetext. Don't do this too often. It kills the fun of special slidetexts.

UnTrait: One of many aspects of the primary and noteworthy secondary characters in a franchise. These UnTraits are split into two groups: Pro and Con.