[Culhwch]

Originally Posted by Spectrum

Another way to help with this problem might be to have a footnote with the pronunciation rules whenever a name is used for the first time. What do you think about that? (This would be in addition to a central pronunciation guide, of course, not replacing it.)

That seems, to me at least, very jarring and a great way to rip a reader out of the narrative. Keep it in the glossary, or put a pronunciation guide at the front - but, as Green pointed out, that's probably not going to be solely your decision if it's published.

One of the reasons I feel I need the glossary is to avoid "state breaks" inside the story. For instance, I have the Scathae (singular: Scatha), a race of reptillian humanoids. They are just as widespread as Humans and everyone knows who they are. So, the first time a Scatha is encountered in the story, it would feel unnatural to have an explanation of what a Scatha looks like. I want to be able to say:

"Ilcas Northstar was tall, with scales of cobalt blue. He pronounced ridges above both eyes, but the right one was chipped - evidently a scar from a past batle."

This describes Ilcas Northstar as an individual. I do not want to have to say:

"The Scatha had a long snout, a body covered in hard scales and a yard-long tail."

I think the first works, quite frankly, without needing to refer to the glossary. By all means keep it in there to add extra details, but don't get so lazy within the narrative that you leave all description to an appendix.

Similarly, a "dax" and a "sphyle" is a male and a female Scatha, respectively. But since everyone in the story knows this, I want just use the words without introduction and let the reader look them up.

I think this is information that could easily be imparted in the narrative, but again, put it in the glossary anyway.

I could also use the glossary to describe the appearance of the main characters. This could spare me the trouble of having to covertly work it into the narrative. But that's less essential to the understanding of the story.

Now this I don't agree with. This is definitely flirting with the laziness I mentioned above. I'm not saying stop the narrative for a paragraph of description, but if you thread it in organically there's no need to put a physical description in the glossary.

Just as an aside - I'm amazed that so many people relate not discovering a glossary until finishing reading a book. I always flick through the length of a book before I start reading, if only to check the page count....