| Re: Do people read glossaries?
You may not need to know more, Connavar, but some of us like it when we can find out more. I'm not insisting that there always be a map (or a glossary), but I like it when there is. (I won't refuse to read a book without them, so no harm is done.) All you have to do is not look at the map or the glossary.
(Where the setting is supposed to be real - as in the Inspector Rebus books - all I have to do is look at an Edinburgh street map; all you have to do is nothing.)
And I agree that your example is bad writing, Ian. In fact the writer should assume all readers are like Connavar, i.e. map-resistant, and tell the reader what the reader needs to know in an artful a way as possible, i.e. no clunkiness.
Spectrum: Don't give up the day job just for the moment: your idea might take a while to catch on (which is not to say it won't). |