Glossary in my book
While writing my book, I have noticed that not a lot of people, that read my draft understand half of the things I'm talking about. So I added a glossary at the end that they could reference via a link directly there.
I do tons of research for this book, many of the things I have included into it involve Latin words, scientific names, and many other complicated words that no normal person would know off the top of their head.
And I noticed, that as I add to the list, I retain more and more information about what I'm writing, so I don't have to keep looking the same things up all the time.
My question is: will people be more willing to read my work if I clarify things using this glossary?
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2 answers
A Glossary Is not a Substitute for Clear Writing
If you were writing a nonfiction book where precise vocabulary was required, I'd say, yes, include a glossary!
If you were writing a very detailed fiction book with a lot of references to words used in a particular culture, language, religion, or historical period, I'd say, yes, include a glossary, but also make sure 90% of the words are obvious from context or unnecessary to know the exact meaning of.
In your case, you're writing a young adult novel (teenagers are the group for young adult books, though the readers can also include college-age) and one that isn't technical or historical with a large amount of necessary obscure vocabulary.
Every single one of your examples is something that most people will know (is there anyone over the age of 12 who doesn't know what a temple is?), something that will be obvious in context if you write it well, or something that can be explained at the time in the text. Some of the words are simply unnecessary.
Do you need a glossary? YES!! For yourself. You say that it's helping you as you write.
Should you publish the glossary with the book? Probably not.
Will anyone who put the book down suddenly decide to read it because, hey, it has a glossary! Hell no. Not a single one.
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If you've ever studied a foreign language, you'd know how annoying it is to go check words in a dictionary; it breaks the flow of your reading, breaks the immersion, and sends you off to perform a "chore". A glossary is no different from a real dictionary in this regard - if your readers have to go search for a word, it breaks their flow, breaks their enjoyment of the book.
What you're writing should thus stand on its own right, no glossary needed. If you're introducing some made-up or very rare terms, they should be understood from context, or described / explained within the text - whatever better suits each particular case. (Consider, for example, how Tolkien explains what hobbits are, and lets you understand from context everything you need to know about orcs.)
One thing you should beware of is the trope called Calling a Rabbit a "Smeerp". That's when there's no real good reason to use an obscure term for something that has an English word. Your 'dryadalum', 'stella', 'inlustris', 'solis' and 'morbus' come to mind. Do you have a really good reason not to use 'elf', 'star' 'starlight' etc. instead? Remember also this xkcd:
(source)
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