Druon's Accursed Kings series is an old favorite of mine; it's also quoted by GRRM as a main inspiration behind Game of Thrones. In short, it's historical fiction set right before the hundred years' war, and presents the court politics & intrigue that preceded it. Most importantly, if you found ASOIAF gruesome, you'll throw away this book because as always, history is far more extreme than fiction. The reason I brought up the series with the title of this thread is because the books feature regular footnotes giving the reader a wider historical background, some more gruesome details or even the eventual fate of certain minor characters. Many books do this; yet I remember Druon's footnotes the most because they were a perfect fit to the story at hand, and allowed you to ignore them if the action was tense on a specific page, and come back later if you wanted to. A form of interaction between reader and author so rare to accomplish. Now here I must state that there are certain pages in (at least the copy I have of) the book that have a "footnote section" much larger than the page itself. Just to show how far the author went with them. For hindsight; I am looking for a blatant way to infodump without infodumping for the novel project I work on; information I worked with that adds to the world, but not to the action or the plot itself. There's no excuse around it. Insofar, I've written an encyclopedia, though it's mostly for my own sake and to keep track of specific items (right now they are more "information cards" for worldbuilding than an actual encyclopedia). Questions I have for you: 1. What's your general opinion on footnotes? Do you feel an "obligation" to always read them, or do you often skip over them? 2. What information do you think is worth to include in footnotes and what definitely isn't? 3. If facing the choice between an "encyclopedia" or actual footnotes, which do you prefer? By encyclopedia, I refer to an ordered (or perhaps per topic grouped) assortment of definitions at the end of the book. Note; I presume footnotes are more tempting for interruption & reading.
In a novel? They shouldn't exist. I've never seen them before, unless they were "fake" and self-referential... My degree is in history, and many of my research papers would include more text in footnotes on the page than the actual page, as you mentioned seeing. The purpose of this, for a research, peer-reviewed paper, is not to explain WHAT the source is but HOW and WHY the source was used. The idea being that academic writing in any given discipline will have many authors using the same sources but with completely different interpretations. So it is very important when citing a common source to explain why you've interpreted it in a way that other equally qualified researchers have not. Also, the reason why this commentary/explanation is done in the footnotes and not in the main text is so the argument (the main text) is not interrupted by endless explanation. And when you get into hardcore history or other types of research, you spend a lot of time "mining" the footnotes of other researchers. If you want to write about a subject, step one is to read everything else that has already been published on the topic. Step two is to look up all the sources the authors used, track them down if possible, and see how they went about formulating their arguments. Step three is to reinterpret those sources and come up with your own conclusions. We're still talking about a novel, right? I'm not sure how any of this would be relevant unless you're writing a research paper since fiction is a pack of lies, as the saying goes.
The specific book series I quoted are all historical fiction, so there's to it. The book also has a family tree in it & a list of characters with historical introduction at the beginning of each novel. In essence, I always considered these details similar to including a "fantasy map", as that too conveys a certain set of information that adds to the world and perhaps clarifies things, but cannot be well-represented in prose. (Unless you are writing a novel for fans of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, who are more than capable of drawing & navigating a map from six-sentence directions like "Head out of this village towards X, then turn left at the big rock and walk north-west in the wilderness until the fallen tree at which point turn south and enter the cave") This saying isn't applicable at all to historical fiction. Otherwise, I don't see much difference to footnoting real historical characters and fictional characters. EG, a footnote detailing Italian politics to bring background to an Italian character in Druon's work isn't all that different to; EG, a presumed footnote to a character from a fictional country about a specific political rivalry in their homeland. Though that's more a personal opinion and feeling than anything set in stone.
I've never seen a footnote in historical fiction. Not saying they don't exist, but they haven't come across my desk yet. I wouldn't use them myself. Not sure I would read a narrative with them either. Do you have some examples besides the series you mention? I'd like to see how they're utilized.
I never feel any obligation as a reader. Ever. If the prologue is of the ugh variety, I will skip it. If the writer creates an environment where I must review a glossary of terms in order to parse what's going on, I'm out. Footnotes in a piece of fiction would raise multiple red flags and at least one annoying klaxon. If it's not in the narrative, it's not in the narrative, and I came only for the narrative. I may well be the wrong person to answer this question (perfectly possible) because my answer is no footnotes, please. I've only ever made one exception on this and it wasn't really footnotes. In the 4th installment of David Gerrold's War Against the Chtorr novels, he breaks with standard form and every chapter is about 2/3 actual narrative and 1/3 world-building folder content presented as either news articles or scientific publications. The series concerns a slow invasion and terraforming of Earth, in waves representing tiers of the alien biosphere. The articles speak about the different creatures, their interconnected relationships, and how they change the planet. The series was amazing up until this last book. The inclusion of this lateral material felt very much like the writer lost his way in this series and really should have tied things up in book 3. I was already invested; else, I would not have bothered finishing that 4th book. If the world is robust enough to fill out an encyclopedia, then that would be what I would want. It's a different thing entirely with a correspondingly different frame of mind that seeks it out. I have several, and I enjoy all of them. I still don't want them piecemealed into the actual pages of the stories they are intended to illuminate. I've also got the Encyclopedia of Dune tucked away somewhere.
Tolkien's the one who used them all, if I remember well. Patrick O'Brian's novels all had a lovely diagram of a ship with nautical terms before the foreword. And I also recall Steven Saylor's Rome-related detective works having footnotes, maps, calendars, timelines, family trees and all, though I'm unsure about that since it's been a long while since I read those and I don't have them at hand / in digital form. All in all, I see it as a semi-regular thing authors do to expand on the world (fiction) or settle backgrounds (historical fiction). The main reason for my question was specifically that; I don't know of any author who included "vital" information in footnotes or encyclopedia. They were all auxiliary information, and allowed a reader to skip them if they wished to. This is where I find encyclopedias superior, as they don't "interfere" with reading or tempt you to read them every time. There's also an interesting question; what if the encyclopedia includes details that /are/ woven into the story and explained, though the encyclopedia serves as a better reference (easier to find). This specifically relates to timelines, family trees and fantasy maps more than word definitions.
My sentiment precisely. I would be fine with this. Again, it would have to do with my frame of mind. When I crack open one of the books I displayed earlier, they include quite a bit of this kind of content relating back to the original narrative. I'm good with narrative reference in the encyclopedia, but not with encyclopedic references in the original content. Like a spyglass. It works in one direction, but not the other.
1. I wouldn't put them in personally as having something else to read that isn't part of the story would be counter to getting the reader immersed in the world. 2. I would avoid getting too nitpicky or focused on minor details. If something happened outside of the story but had an impact on why a character or faction in the story acted a certain way, then that would be worth explaining. 3. I would prefer an encyclopedia section that I could either read when the mood or ignore when I am not.
Footnotes are a little weird for a novel. A reference section in the back can work well, especially if the book has a magic system, or something like that. The content should add to the main work; not be entirely necessary, and not be entirely a summary. More a supplement.
I always feel very obligated to read everything between the covers. The title page is worth a glance at least to determine the date of publishing. I love to read the acknowledgement page, and if the dedication is in a foreign language, I will usually translate it. The short bio of the author is always interesting as well, and I love prologues. Suffice it to say, if I found footnotes in a novel, I would read them all.
I regard footnotes and/or encyclopedia as a style choice of the author. I've read some fiction books that include footnotes and lots more that include an encyclopedia. I almost never read encyclopedias (in all my years of reading I probably skimmed through two or three of them), but footnotes I regard more kindly, at least if they are concise and short. A footnote that is the size of half a page I'd usually ignore. Examples of books with footnotes that are not historical fiction are 'The City of Dreaming Books' (Walter Moers), and 'World War Z' (Max Brooks). While reading the story and coming across a reference number for a footnote, I'd skim the first line of the footnote to see if the information is worthwhile to read (which means is pertinent to the plot/character right now). If not, I'd ignore the rest of the footnote; but I might come back to it after I've finished the rest of the book, and the urgency to find out what happens next has passed. If you are relying on the reader to read the footnotes to have him understand the story on the page, you're setting yourself up for a fall. Never, ever depend on them to read additionally provided material. Most of them won't. Background information about events that resulted in the current situation on the page, character notes, or even as the OP said to give information about the eventual fate of third-tier characters are all excellent choices. I'd read them, provided it's written concisely. Prolonged historical events that have nothing to do with the events on the page I'd skip. Also if the footnotes are written as if they are a separate story. The voice they are written in should be recognisably different from what's on the page. I don't want to read a second/third/whatever number of stories while I am reading the main one.
