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You can do this as stylistic choice Footnotes to help explain a complex technology, add additional information or provide a humorous aside. Terry Pratchett used footnotes liberally to great effect...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-20T00:53:25Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/43484 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T11:19:06Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/43484 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
# You can do this as stylistic choice Footnotes to help explain a complex technology, add additional information or provide a humorous aside. Terry Pratchett used footnotes liberally to great effect. The key is in developing a narrative voice for the footnotes such that they aid the narrative rather than distract from it. A dry technical footnote which only describes a technical term you used isn't adding to your narrative. Instead it simple shows that your failed to properly describe it within the prose. Conversely a footnote that adds context or humour to a page can be a brilliant addition. Whether this is a good idea or not will depend on your narrative style. If your narrative voice is almost a character in itself, as with Pratchett's work, you can use footnotes are evidence of the narrator becoming distracted in their retelling. If your narrator is more of a invisible bystander with not influence on the story you will need to find another voice to use in the footnotes. If you can pull it off you can use the footnotes to tell an entire meta-story of their own.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2019-03-14T04:49:45Z (almost 6 years ago)
Original score: 2