Do people read glossaries?

[Hilarious Joke]

You know, thinking about it, it should be like a mini-dictionary like Lith said. And who reads a dictionary? Well, freaks like me, but most wouldn't! But it's still useful, for the same reasons a dictionary is! Anyhoo, put it at the front, Spectrum, or I'll eventually read your published work, find a glossary at the end, and come after you. And it won't be pretty, I'm thinking I'll force-feed you the Wheel of Time books ten times over.

Love,

HJ.

[lin robinson]

I think I'm seeing the problem here.

No, people don't READ glossaries or dictionaries. What they do, they use them to look up words they don't know but want to understand. So, while few will read through the glossary (or footnotes) like reading a book, that doesn't mean it's useless, nor that it won't get read or contribute value to the reader.

[Ursa major]

As Lin said, but this means they have to stop reading the story, go searching for the glossary, go searching through the glossary, read the entry, find where they were reading....

I can't help thinking that at least part of the spell of reading - to be immersed in the story - is lost during this process.


Oh, and this means your glossary had better be near enough comprehensive.

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by Ursa major

Oh, and this means your glossary had better be near enough comprehensive.

But my glossary also shouldn't tell the reader more than I want him to know. A big part of my story will be the mystery and the gradual unveiling of the "Big Picture". This is one of the things I love myself, namely being driven on through the series by a craving to find out how it's all connected; the various factions and characters, the villains' master plan, the back stories of characters and civilizations, and the entire cosmos.

So my plan is that the glossary will be small in the first book and then grow throughout the series as more information is revealed.

[Green]

In response to Lin's suggestion...

I don't always use glossaries as references. I do, sometimes, read them. Bakker's glossary in TTF is the perfect example. A wonderful addition to the trilogy, full of interesting footnotes, history, and sidetales, but not something I refer to during the main text itself.

So yeah. People use the things for all kinds of things, and you shouldn't rely on it for anything that's important to the story, because a lot of people don't read it. unless it's really interesting, I probably wouldn't bother with it myself.

[jenna]

I only read glossaries, family trees, appendixes etc if I've become so completely enamoured with the world and the story by the end of the book that I'm aching for even a little bit more. Otherwise I would probably just skim it. The problem with them, as I see it - if you put them at the start of the story one is not involved in the story yet, and therefore has no reason to care about the intricacies of the world. If you add footnotes I will hate you, as I hate footnotes! I don't want to stop reading the story if I'm immersed in it, but then I have the nagging feeling that I'm missing something. Putting them at the end, they can only really compliment the story after one has finished it, as there's every chance that people will miss that it's even there.

I second the idea that this is information you can add into the story itself, using dialogue, POV's etc. It will just take a little more work and skill than it would if you just throw it all in a glossary at the end. And give your readers a bit more credit, assume that they're not that dense that they need everything spelled out for them and that they couldn't work things out for themselves with a few well-placed clues...

[dustinzgirl]

Originally Posted by Spectrum

But my glossary also shouldn't tell the reader more than I want him to know. A big part of my story will be the mystery and the gradual unveiling of the "Big Picture". This is one of the things I love myself, namely being driven on through the series by a craving to find out how it's all connected; the various factions and characters, the villains' master plan, the back stories of characters and civilizations, and the entire cosmos.

So my plan is that the glossary will be small in the first book and then grow throughout the series as more information is revealed.

You can still do all of that. Although you should just have the whole glossary, IMO, from the start.

For example you can have XYZ as "an unknown entity that creates strife and distress" and so forth and so on.

The point of a glossary is not to reveal or un-reveal, it is to define. What you are talking about now is more like an appendix--an addition to the plot that doesn't impact the plot but provides more information.

[lin robinson]

Oh, and this means your glossary had better be near enough comprehensive.

I would assume that the author would be clever enough to include all neologisms in the glossary.

As far as losing the glorious, but apparently fragile, immersion in the work... so people have been wrong to use footnotes all these years? To use words beyond the assumed reader's assumed vocabulary list?

This has the smack of "teachism", the sort of thing people who sell advice to writers tend to cook up, as opposed to the writers and readers themselves. Who are pretty much aware that reading a book is not some hypnotic spell, and people go in and out of the reading (sometimes just to do frivolous stuff like eat or sleep or go to the bathroom..all projects that can be as distracting as flipping to the back of the book).
(Even for people who have problems using bookmarks)

Have you EVER heard anybody say they lost interest in A Clockwork Orange because of the glossary? This is just plain not a legitimate argument, sorry.

[dustinzgirl]

A Clockwork Orange has a glossary?

[pyan]

My copy has, my ptitsa droog...and there's lots of them on the Net...

Nadsat Glossary

[Ursa major]

Originally Posted by lin robinson

I would assume that the author would be clever enough to include all neologisms in the glossary.

Exactly.

Originally Posted by lin robinson

As far as losing the glorious, but apparently fragile, immersion in the work... so people have been wrong to use footnotes all these years?

No, Lin, but they ought to realise the consequences of what they're doing.

Footnotes, for instance, give a different feel to a book. When it's done well, and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a good example of this, it reinforces the conceit of the book, in this case that it was written in the nineteenth century. The "quoted" excerpts used in Dune also add to the feel of the book as well as imparting information.

In another thread, someone said they hated chapter titles in fiction, but expected them in non-fiction. If the conceit of (part of) a book is that it's non-fiction, you ought to think about using chapter titles; and footnotes and a glossary (and even a bibliography ) for that matter.


If the glossary and/or footnotes are simply thrown in to cover the inability of an author to get information across in the text, this will not help a reader get into the book.

[lin robinson]

No, Lin, but they ought to realise the consequences of what they're doing.

If those "consequences" are real and not, as I suggest, imaginary.
The idea that this would keep the reader from "getting into the book" is ridiculous. Read previous post for some hints on why that's so.
You could make a much better case for the idea that it actually HELPS the reader get into the book.

And if you think the glossary in A Clockwork Orange was due to the author's inability. Or that it would have been better to have running translations in the text or something, there really isn't much point in you continuing this, because nobody is going to take it seriously.

You ARE an unpublished writing teacher, aren't you?

[Ursa major]

It depends, Lin, on the type of book (as I think I suggested). If it's a fast-paced actioner, it's going to slow things down if you have to leave the action to look things up. If, however, the pace is slower, it won't have as big an effect.


Frankly, almost anything, when used inappropriately, can undermine the reading experience; which is why an author should try to understand what they're asking the reader to do at any given point in the narrative. (For example, a fight is not the best place to mention half a dozen new creatures whose characteristcs are to be found only in a glossary.)


I'm not a writing teacher, but thanks (). I'm a telecoms consultant and, more importantly, a reader, a reader who doesn't like to be messed about because an author doesn't know what he or she is doing.

[lin robinson]

but thanks

That was no compliment. I meant it in the sense of somebody who can't write successfully, but give writers advice anyway.

It's a pet peeve, and one thing that always unfolds in these things when some writing guru insists that you should use adverbs or flashbacks or prologues or voice over or the letter "R" or whatever is they get slowly backed into a corner by the example of successful writers who do it, the lack of any reason whatsoever for not doing, and the illogic of the position...they suddenly switch over to "if done badly" or "when used inappropriately".

Actually there's really NOTHING that doesn's suck if done badly. Well, okay, a blowjob maybe. This is a ruse.

In fact, the discussion is not whether to do something badly, or to toss terms into the middle of fight, it's about the use of glossaries in general. And they are a handy tool and can augment the book. Read more widely.

Obviously, footnotes and glossaries are going to be a problem for special populations, like the attention deficit community. But the question is a little more general than that.

Like I say, it's a pet peeve. But you contention that glossaries ruin the pacing of the book is just plain lame and runs counter to the widely available evidence of so many books that do it.

[Spectrum]

Whoa, whoa. This is starting to look dangerously like a flame war.

I think Ursa Major's point was not that glossaries are always bad, but only that an excessively information-thin and glossary-dependent story is bad.

Personally I've never minded looking things up in a glossary, even in the middle of things. I guess I don't get as "immersed" in the story as some people do. But I'll keep the warning in mind.