Do people read glossaries?

[lin robinson]

How many readers of Sara Paretsky's VI Warshawski novels do you suppose are intimately familiar with Chicago?

Beside the point. Most people are GENERALLY familiar with Chicago, and even more so with the general feel and layout of American cities. Anintimate familiarity isn't required.
As opposed to, say, Middle Earth or Atlantis. And in stories (like so many of them) that involved traipsing around those areas, a map is not a bad thing.

Similarly, you see maps in a great many books on battles and military campaigns. And the are very helpful. And people don't HAVE TO READ THEM.

Frankly, this mindless antipathy to an author putting whatever aids he wants in his book is hard to understand.


Connovar, I think what you actually mean (or should) is not glossaries, but a glossary in which somebody did something really stupid.

In fact, so stupid that, if you'll pardon my suspicions, I find very difficult to believe is an actual occurence. Certainly hard to believe there are two such.

 

[Culhwch]

The map might include only important features brought up in the story, but I find I enjoy it even more when locations and land features not mentioned in the story are also presented. This opens up the idea that, while the author did not utilize these locations within the present narrative, they may be used at some time in the future. It also lets my imagination fly - "What could this hamlet called 'Darian's Crossing' be like? What is its importance? Will the author bring us to it eventually?" Even if they're never used, I still find their presence comforting, after-all, I'll most likely never travel to "Normal Square, Pennsylvania", but it exists none-the-less, no?

I am in full agreement, Precise.

 

[jenna]

Beside the point. Most people are GENERALLY familiar with Chicago, and even more so with the general feel and layout of American cities. Anintimate familiarity isn't required.

What about those who don't live in America and have never been? There are several billion out there, I believe...

 

[Connavar]

I read alot of good crime books set in LA. The authors write alot of discriptions of real places,roads etc that when i see Cops show or some movie set in those areas i know them by look from the picture in my mind of the places the authors wrote about.



Trust me you dont need to know more. You arent a turist looking for travel guide in a fiction book....

 

[iansales]

Chicago: big city in the US, on the shore of one of the Great Lakes, has lots of skyscrapers, and... er, I think that's about the sum of my knowledge about the place. Still don't need a map to enjoy Paretsky's novels.

I never said using a map made a writer lazy. But using a map in a story - as in "they rode from village A to village B (see map at front to determine journey length)" - is certainly bad writing. And that's a pitfall I think it's easy to fall into if you rely too much on a map. The same is true of glossaries. Reading the appendices and glossary in Dune is not necessary to understanding and enjoying the story (and, in fact, the map in that book is probably more confusing than no map would have been...). The glossaries in Iain M Banks' Matter only seem to be there to hide the epilogue. Certainly, there's nothing in them that's not in the narrative.

Having said all that, if Pelagic Argosy has correctly interpreted Spectrum's aims... well, an interesting exercise, but I'm not sure how successful it would be.

 

[Ursa major]

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).

 

[Spectrum]

Spectrum is asking about taking the convention of fantasy - the glossary, map, supplemental encyclopedia, etc - and taking it a step further. He wants to turn the act of reading his story into simulating an act of research into his created world. (Correct me if I'm wrong, Spectrum.) He will be counting on his readers to be sympathetic to his world-building conceit.

I think it's a valid idea in theory. The problem is, I think you'd have to be very talented to pull it off and make such an exercise satisfying. It's quite a gamble. Already, you're talking about an idea that will turn off a large percentage of potential readers who don't want to "do homework." (As evidenced by some of the responses in this thread.) Even Tolkien didn't expect any of his readers to be interested in his world building. And, as you said yourself, you don't have any fans yet. You're asking people to trust in your vision sight unseen.

I am surprised that this is so controversial. But I probably have not explained it very well. What I aim for is not a travelogue full of info dump. I want to present my world in the form of a strong story; as I said above, I strive to have both. It's like the old debate of "story vs. characters - which is more important?". A good story suffers without strong characters inside it, and characters, no matter how well-developed, are of little use without an interesting story around them. World-building is the same: It's cool and interesting on its own, but it doesn't become a good novel until it's combined with good story and characters.

But my story is very mystery-driven. You might compare it to a detective story. In such a story, the motivation that drives the reader on is not "how will they catch the killer?" but: "Who is the killer? And what about all those other guys, what are the skeletons in their closets?" Or, at least, I think that's the motivation. I'm not a fan of detective stories myself, but I believe it is the same principle.

Another example for comparison (and also one of my main influences) is H.P. Lovecraft. Many of his stories were, at their heart, not concerned with the guy who happened to be the main character and what happened to him, but with the things he discovered. When you're reading Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, then what drives you on is not "OMG, how will they get out of there alive?" but "OMG, what happened in that ancient city?". At least, that's what it was like for me.

What I aim for is a combination of the best of both worlds: A story driven not only by the tension of "what will happen next?", but also very much by the mystery factor: "What has happened before, and how does it all fit into the big picture?"

Having mentioned Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen before, I might add that his series does the same thing. In my world, at least. Every new installment of the series adds more material about the "Warren universe" and its colossal history. My motivation when reading it is not only "will Anomander Rake die in the next book?" and "will Karsa Orlong become king of the Teblor?", but "what is the deal with Rake, his brothers, and Dragnipur?" and "what is the deal with the Teblor and the Faces in the Rock and the Crippled God?".

So what I am trying to do is not completely unheard of.

Trust me you dont need to know more. You arent a turist looking for travel guide in a fiction book....

You made a mistake in phrasing that sentence. I believe what you mean is: "I don't need to know more. I am not a tourist..."

Still don't need a map to enjoy Paretsky's novels.

I don't need a map to enjoy Stephen Marley's Spirit Mirror, either. But I do miss it, and I would enjoy it even more if there was one. Your technique of "proof by counterexample" is a fallacy. Quoting examples of stories that get by without maps does nothing to prove that adding maps would not improve them further. And quoting the subjective experience that you don't enjoy maps does nothing to prove that others won't. (This was the gist of my comment to Connavar, above.)

I never said using a map made a writer lazy. But using a map in a story - as in "they rode from village A to village B (see map at front to determine journey length)" - is certainly bad writing.

On a note related to this, one annoying thing that I see in many stories is that it is often unclear where each scene takes place. I plan to solve this by having a date and place header at the beginning of each chapter and major scene. Like this:

Year 2927 of the Imperial Calendar
11th day of Yeziel
Heropond Forest, east of Bryndwin, Scyrum

Bla bla bla...

Year 2929 of the Imperial Calendar
21st day of Atzirah
Ducal palace, Malcur, Pelidor

Bla bla bla...

The calendar system is, of course, explained in the glossary. For those who refuse to read that, the years are still informative, and besides, I've already provided a service that most authors don't, so you can't complain.

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).

Haha. Don't worry, I won't. I am not exactly planning to make a living as a writer. (Otherwise I wouldn't be spending five-six years taking a degree in Computer Science.) That's one of the reasons why I feel I can afford to refuse to be commercial.

 

[Connavar]

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).

I should have qouted Jenna i was answering to this :


"What about those who don't live in America and have never been? There are several billion out there, I believe... "




Thinking its nice to know more about real life cities in a fiction book but its not a must to add it,to make it full on info and discriptions of real cities.

Not talking about maps at all. But that as the person Jenna qouted said its not a must to be really familier with of cities to enjoy a story.

Just saying i doubt many readers use fiction books as means to get to know more about a real city.




Talking about Rebus, i read and enjoy the regular info and discriptions is more than enough to se Edinborugh perfecly fine.

 

[The Pelagic Argosy]

In my earlier post, I forgot to include my own experience with glossaries and the like. I often refer to maps and glossaries if they are included. In reading Robert Jordan, for example, I sometimes get confused with all the names and viewpoint changes, so I find the quick reference helpful. This certainly destroys my immersion in the reading. But, I would say that my immersion was ruined by the fact that I got confused in the first place, not by flipping back to the glossary. And my immersion in the story is a moot point anyway, because I read at work where I suffer numerous interruptions. I don't pay a bit of attention to 'proper' pronunciation.

But, if the glossary hadn't been included in the first place, it probably wouldn't even occur to me to stop reading. I would have to rely on context to jog my memory. Or I would just have to get by without remembering who "Leane" is for a couple of paragraphs. My point is, I wouldn't miss the glossary if it wasn't there.

Beside the point. Most people are GENERALLY familiar with Chicago, and even more so with the general feel and layout of American cities. Anintimate familiarity isn't required.
As opposed to, say, Middle Earth or Atlantis. And in stories (like so many of them) that involved traipsing around those areas, a map is not a bad thing.

I would argue that people are also generally familiar with the "Middle Earth" layout by now - a wide expanse of country, cut across by mountain ranges, forests, and dotted here and there with villages. Such generic, cookie-cutter-type maps are more trendy than truly helpful. Would readers really freak if they stopped being included inside every fantasy book jacket? But I think the question is, have readers and writers of fantasy become so accustomed to maps and glossaries that they now feel they are necessary to their enjoyment of the story? Moreover, can vital information now be taken out of the text itself and put in supplemental material like this? Teresa likes to have a map at her fingertips because of her bad sense of direction. So do I, actually. I frequently refer to the maps and glossaries while reading. But will I become dizzyingly lost while reading without one? I think everyone agrees that if this becomes the case, the writer has failed.

Similarly, you see maps in a great many books on battles and military campaigns. And the are very helpful. And people don't HAVE TO READ THEM.

In the case of a military campaign, I agree that a map would be helpful. You could make a much stronger case for a map in this situation than in a fantasy-journey story. However, in the question that Spectrum originally posed, he made the argument that readers would be expected to refer to his supplementary material if it is included. In fact, he claimed that he would be offended if they failed to do so. He suggested including author's notes spelling out the fact. See my discussion below.

Another example for comparison (and also one of my main influences) is H.P. Lovecraft. Many of his stories were, at their heart, not concerned with the guy who happened to be the main character and what happened to him, but with the things he discovered. When you're reading Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, then what drives you on is not "OMG, how will they get out of there alive?" but "OMG, what happened in that ancient city?". At least, that's what it was like for me.

What I aim for is a combination of the best of both worlds: A story driven not only by the tension of "what will happen next?", but also very much by the mystery factor: "What has happened before, and how does it all fit into the big picture?"

Having mentioned Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen before, I might add that his series does the same thing. In my world, at least. Every new installment of the series adds more material about the "Warren universe" and its colossal history. My motivation when reading it is not only "will Anomander Rake die in the next book?" and "will Karsa Orlong become king of the Teblor?", but "what is the deal with Rake, his brothers, and Dragnipur?" and "what is the deal with the Teblor and the Faces in the Rock and the Crippled God?".

Ok, so your story will contain a number of side stories or mysteries that you are hoping might intrigue your readers? Yes, I agree, that's not an out-of-the ordinary approach to writing a fantasy book. In fact, it's pretty typical of any world-building exercise. Any well-written story will, hopefully, intrigue the reader to the point where he or she is asking questions and craving more. But...what does that have to do with your glossary again?

Early on in this thread you discussed the possibility of putting the drier facts about, for example, your reptilian race into a glossary because you couldn't find a way to include it in your prose that wasn't awkward. And you were concerned about pronunciations and such. You were so concerned with this that you felt your glossary might be placed in the front, and that, perhaps, the reader should be explicitly instructed to refer to it.

So, we're back to the original question: Are these side mysteries vital to the main story or not? If they are, then we are discussing the possibility of taking sub-plots out of the story itself and weaving them into the glossary. I would argue that this is a bad idea. If clunky exposition is your concern, forcing readers to refer to supplemental materials is about the most awkward way to get it across that I can think of.

But, if the information is not vital to the story, then we're just talking about an ordinary, run-of-the-mill glossary, and there's no particular reason it should be placed in front or that readers should be unduly lectured about it.

 

[lin robinson]

What about those who don't live in America and have never been? There are several billion out there, I believe...

And never watch movies? Or TV shows that show what American cities are like? Yet read English novels? We need to help those poor souls.

 

[lin robinson]

People are familiar with Middle Earth because they have seen maps of it. Duh.

they rode from village A to village B (see map at front to determine journey length)"

Run into a lot of that, do you? I never have, ever. Or seen a writer give away a plot point in a glossary.

I only two possibilities here:
1. People are making up ridiculous crap to support weak arguments about what other people should or shouldn't do.

of

2. A lot of people here spend their time reading some REALLY deplorably crappy writers and should probably ask around for some more competent authors and not generalize their experience to the whole of literature.

 

[Spectrum]

Ok, so your story will contain a number of side stories or mysteries that you are hoping might intrigue your readers? Yes, I agree, that's not an out-of-the ordinary approach to writing a fantasy book. In fact, it's pretty typical of any world-building exercise. Any well-written story will, hopefully, intrigue the reader to the point where he or she is asking questions and craving more. But...what does that have to do with your glossary again?

Not much, necessarily. Only someone told me not to focus on world-building, so I felt the need to explain this.

As for the rest of your post: Yes, I have already acknowledged the merit of reducing glossary-dependence within the story. I'm on it.

 

[jenna]

And never watch movies? Or TV shows that show what American cities are like? Yet read English novels? We need to help those poor souls.

I'm sure plenty of people have no idea about anything to do with Chicago except for the name. I'm just saying, it's a bit ridiculous to assume that everyone around the world knows everything about American cities. Personally, I've been there so I know it quite well, but I don't recall ever having seen a movie or TV show that gave me an impression of what it would be like.

And to clarify, I like maps, but don't deem them necessary.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I think we've answered the initial question: Yes, some people do read and enjoy glossaries, while others consider them a waste of paper. The same with maps and appendices in general.

But it seems to me that we can disagree on the value of glossaries/maps without a) condemning other people's tastes because they are different from our own, or b) dismissing other people's arguments with uncivil remarks.

In fact (going into moderator mode) I think a little more respect all around would be a very desirable thing.

 

[j d worthington]

Quite right, Teresa. It doesn't matter which person's points I agree or disagree with, there's been far too much incivility in tone here, and it's been very difficult to refrain from locking the thread with the ill-mannered squabbling that's been going on here quite a bit. There's no call for it whatsoever, especially on a thread of this type.

On my personal preferences: I think glossaries, maps, etc., should be adjuncts to writing a good story, rather than one of the main points of a book (unless it is specifically a glossary or map of an imagined realm); but other than that, there's no particular problem with it. Plenty of excellent writers have made use of such now and again, and in fantasy in particular it can add a certain "flavor" to the book as a whole, a bit more verisimilitude if you will. They shouldn't be necessary, but as an added filip they can (used properly) be a very nice added touch. (Used improperly, relied on too heavily, they can be an annoyance deserving of being boiled in oil... but that's true of quite a few things in the writing game....)

My only caution would be to be careful to not withhold necessary information from the main body of the work in order to promote your glossary; but other than that, if you feel like adding a little "spice" to the glossary stylistically (via use of dry humor, unnecessary -- for the purposes of the story -- but interesting little tidbits of information on subjects for those so inclined, etc.), then do so. For both the "geek" and those who are somewhat inclined to be scholarly, this can add a bit of garnish to the dish....

 

[Threddy]

I haven't read the thread up to this point, apart from the first post, so this may have already been argued over or said:

I normally look at the back of the book to see how many pages there are, and then I notice the glossary/punctuation guide, then I know, if there's something I don't understand/ can't say, I can look it up, so yes, i think people do refer to glossaries, but I don't think people read them.

Ed - Threddy

 

[iansales]

Or seen a writer give away a plot point in a glossary.

While neither fit this description exactly - and they're also both very good novels - in Iain M Banks' Matter an epilogue after the glossaries changes the shape of the ending, and in Philip Kerr's The Second Angel clues to the story's resolution are given in the footnotes.

 

[Spectrum]

In fact (going into moderator mode) I think a little more respect all around would be a very desirable thing.

Quite right, Teresa. It doesn't matter which person's points I agree or disagree with, there's been far too much incivility in tone here, and it's been very difficult to refrain from locking the thread with the ill-mannered squabbling that's been going on here quite a bit. There's no call for it whatsoever, especially on a thread of this type.

Were any of those my posts? If so, then I'm sorry about that.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

It's nice of you to apologize, Spectrum, but it was a general warning, not meant to single anyone out. At this point, who said what is less important than how we all behave -- and the direction this thread takes -- in the future.

 

[Spectrum]

In case anyone else is mining this thread for ideas, I have found a good way of describing how a Scatha looks, and I thought I'd post it. I have an early scene with a mysterious character who looks like a Scatha, yet subtly different. (His true nature will not be revealed until late in the book.) We have a bystander who comments on those subtle differences. Examples:

Then it struck him: That is a strange-looking dax. His scales were pure
black, glossy like some kind of precious stone. Rian had never seen a black
Scatha before. Blue, red, occasionally green, but never black. How could I
not notice this straight away?

...

The mysterious pair became yet more mysterious by the moment. The
dark one’s tail was strangely snaky, whipping back and forth like that of a
cat. Certainly nothing like the mostly rigid tail of any normal Scatha. His
snout was slender in the middle but widened slightly at the end, unlike
the blunted triangle forms of ordinary Scathaese snouts. The ridges above
his eyes were unnaturally elongated, tapering backwards almost like horns.
And that glow in his eyes. Baleful, and yet fascinating. Rian half-imagined
the black-scaled one to be some mighty Dragon or daemon out of legend.

...

From his hiding place, not comprehending a word, Rian saw the tall dax
straighten and flex the finger of his left hand. The boy squinted, then gaped.
Those were not Scathaese fingers! Each of them sported a long claw! And
when he looked closer, the black one’s smile revealed not Scathaese teeth
(which were no sharper than Humans’) but fangs, like those of a snake!