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Author Post
Shdwphoenix
Topic: Glossary placement
When writing a story, sometimes you use words you've made up or real words that you wouldn't expect your audience to know. I've seen authors provide mini-glossaries for these terms at the beginning of their chapters or at the end of their chapters. My question to you all is: if the author provided a mini-glossary, would you prefer it at the beginning or the end of the chapter?

Some people like it at the beginning, but sometimes the terms listed there hint things in the chapter when I don't want to be hinted. I like it at the end, but I'm wondering if some find the scrolling annoying.

#1 Jan 11th 2007, 7:19pm
Marinus
I'd probably go for a glossary of terms at the end of a chapter. I don't particularly mind the scrolling, unless I have to check the glossary for every third word, for example.
#2 Jan 16th 2007, 12:44am
Tamaki
Ooo... glossaries...

Well, a particular nation in my story is heavily influenced by Japan (I basically took Japan, gave it a larger main island, rearranged everything to make it much easier to defend by naval means... and plopped it in my world under the name Seres). Since much of the knowledge regarding Japan is colored by anime-manga freaks/geeks/otaku (and no, otaku is not something to be proud of and it doesn't necessarily have to do with manga... and the Japanese regard it as almost a social disease), I added some footnotes as clarification...

...

So I guess I didn't really use a glossary... O.O

#3 Feb 01st 2007, 8:03pm

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