posted
I've created an enormous world with characters, families, castes, religions, social-political structure, and power-political structure with a rich past and that slowly changes over 20 years.
What are some of the arguments for or against including some tables or a glossary to help the reader understand?
posted
i'm not sure how it effects marketing, but i don't have a problem with charts or glossaries if i can read a piece and enjoy it without them. then, if the book really interests me, i'll want to learn more and i'll read them.
posted
Not everybody has access to the internet - I know how frustrating it can be to not be able to find out more on something. You can put it o-l, but if they will want to read it to clarify things, I would put it directly in the book. And they can skip right over it if they don't want to read it.
Posts: 79 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I personally like trivia (that's the category it would fall into) about books/stories, especially if they're mind capturing. My preference though is to place them in the back of the book where I'll be mostly likely to continue on after finishing the story. If placed in the beginning I find it frustrating.
Posts: 10 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I don’t mind them, but I don’t really want to have to study or use them regularly in order to understand the story. Time spend digging though a glossary is not enjoyable reading time for me. But if thing are complicated, or an unusual term used early on and then not again until many chapters later, it’s sort of nice to have that to check in. I like it best when they stick it at the back, where an appendix or glossary should go, rather than at the front. At the front makes me feel like I have to study it order to read on which is irritating, plus when I first begin a story, I don’t know any of the people/terms/etc. anyway, so it is just babble at that point.
Posts: 652 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
I personally have no objection whatsoever to having a glossary, maps, lineages, and whatever other information that the author might have available as 'reference' material included in the book.
There are two main arguments against doing so, from your point of view.
First, and most important, the material may not be in its final form. If you publish it, then decide later that some aspect or other of your world ought to change, you might find yourself in something of a predicament. For this reason I would suggest that you include only material dealing directly with what is in that book, and no material that you are planning to use in later books (this also makes it more fun, for the reader that likes that sort of thing, to read your later books, since they will include additional material rather than the same).
The second reason is that if your material is extensive enough you might be able to sell it as a reference book in its own right should your stories set in that world become successful enough. This is not artistically important, but is a consideration that you might keep in mind.
Of course, whether or not anyone is really interested in your stories is what determines the value (both in the market and as added material within the books) of such information. But whatever the case, the additional information adds value unless it is patently silly and purile.
posted
I personally find that sort of thing at the beginning of a book to be quite intimidating. But then again, I rarely read larg-cast books because no matter how skillfully written, I can't keep all the characters straight. I also tend to feel that invented words should explain themselves within their context, without having to resort to a glossary.
posted
I agree with Chuckles (nice name BTW mate) in that invented words should be capable of explaining themselves in context. (I also dislike a large cast, but that's a personal preference.) What a glossary should do is, not define the words, but elaborate. While it may be obvious that the word reresh is an honorific by looking at the context, a glossary can tell you how it is earnt, for example, or where it originates from (which is, as Red Wolf said, trivia). As for family charts, they should likewise be trivia (I personally don't go for them, but there's as much reason for them as there is a glossary). JK
Posts: 503 | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
I feel rather strongly about this issue. I don't want to do research to read a book. I stopped reading books that required Cliff Notes after graduating high school. I want a book that is thought-provoking but I also want to be entertained and not have to do additional research to understand it. I tired for a few days to muddle through Dune as several people claim it to be great, but I couldn't get into it. I try to keep things simple for my sanity as much as the readers. Why over complicate things? I have noticed that some books with reference sections don't really need them. I thought Eye of the World was fairly straight forward but it had a glossary. A lot of times writing is about straddling lines. You don't want to over explain you world or assume you readers can pick it up without some explanation. A happy medium should be reached and I think it can be done without useing a libaray full of additional reference material. It almost comes off as lazy and somewhat lacking to me.
JOHN!
[This message has been edited by JOHN (edited June 10, 2002).]
posted
A reader certainly shouldn't have to research a work to enjoy it. Otherwise fiction writers may as well be writing text books and student courses instead.
But a curious reader may want to know a little more about the world. That's what you can cater for on a website with background information.
After all, one of the most important concerns of marketing isn't simply about gaining customers - it's about keeping them interested for repeat sales. That's what you can do with your world building information - satisfy the curious and keep them inside your own reality.
posted
I think that tables are a great and wonderful thing. I like to be able to see how someone fits into a family, because lets face it sometimes it gets confusing. This is especially true when the world you are dealing with is spanning numerous books/stories and not all characters make a strong presence but may be referred to.
On the other hand, I don't think that glosseries for your religions/political structure (in their form) is particularly userful. If I have to constantly look stuff like that up, then I get turned off pretty fast. If you have the story written in a way where those issues are important, then stating that as the book goes along I think is more helpful to readers. If you have particular words that mean something then use those words often enough and in ways that it is obvious as to what you are referring. If the castes are strikingly different, then even the dress may show that, so if someone is reading and the character has grungy clothing they will be seen as a street person (or however the world is set up) as opposed to a high colored starch infested piece of material.
posted
One argument against charting relationships is that doing so may pull the veil from some of your plot developments. What if the Prince on page 22 finds out on page 414 that he's actually a pauper, with no claim to the throne? What if your heroine was conceived in a laboratory and not, as she believes, by the unholy union of your villian and a goat? Do you really want your reader to discover these twists by browsing a chart at the back of your book?
I like chad_parish's idea best--seems to me this type of documention is best suited for the web.
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