Footnotes in Fantasy and Sci-Fi

Those of you who have read my book or have spoken to me about this issue know I have footnotes in my stories. Sometimes I get comments from people who seem to think this was a spur of the moment decision I made as a way to cheat with worldbuilding. I guarantee you it was not. This was a deliberate decision I made after a long time of consideration, weighing pros and cons, and solidifying what my writing goals were.

I’ve been criticized a few times for my use of footnotes in my novel, and while those are 100% valid, they often come from people who do not know my intentions. Bluntly, if I were to *not* put footnotes in, I would be in a worse situation. I believe the people who complain about footnotes would complain more passionately about excessive, annoying, immersion-breaking worldbuilding in the text. A reviewer might take off half a star for footnotes, but those same people would take off two whole stars for clunky, poorly-placed worldbuilding and awkward pacing.

“But Erika, use a glossary.” I intend to have a glossary, but it’s not the solution you think it is. Some e-readers cannot easily access a glossary and some people do not want to see other, possibly spoilery terms as they are searching for the word in question. Having footnotes allows the reader to see the comment without losing their place and without drowning in other terms.

Now, do I think all books, particularly science fiction and fantasy, should have footnotes? Oh hell no. I would even say *most* don’t need them. But most books aren’t mine. I know this is going to have massive “I’m not like the other girls” energy, but it’s true. Most SFF series are self-contained, chronological, and everything you need to know for each book can be explained in the text. My novels are not designed the same way.

Merchants of Knowledge and Magic is my debut novel, but it will not be my last. I intend to write books in the Pentagonal Dominion until I die. While they all occur in the same world, they will not all occur in the same exact place or time. Characters change, times change, plotlines are unrelated. I have compared it to how it would be if a fantasy character wrote about our world, but instead of writing one story, wrote about different times and places.

If their world doesn’t have dogs, but each story they write taking place on Earth includes a dog, do they have to explain in every book what a dog is?

This can especially be intrusive if the novels are written in 1st person (as mine are) and it makes no sense for the narrator to stop what they’re doing to think about the existence and nature of dogs. Personally, I find it more elegant to mention the dog and put a little footnote explaining what a dog is.

This is a simple example, and perhaps not the best because readers are good at picking up on context clues for made-up animals. Let’s take it a step further, using an example from my world: gastrobacter. This is a bacteria I made up for my fantasy world. It’s an integral part of culture and biology, but the characters don’t think about it on a daily basis. Many are only vaguely aware gastrobacter exists. But if a human reads my book, they might wonder: where the hell are the characters going to the bathroom? Perhaps you aren’t so crude. Perhaps you don’t think about where characters are doing their business and you don’t care to know. It’s still part of the setting, and must be known to further understand why things are as they are. Why do character have to vomit to expel any bad substances they ate? Why is gunpowder rare and difficult to make? Why do they rely on magic to fertilize their crops? Even if you couldn’t care less about when or where characters answer nature’s call, if you are intelligent and actively thinking, you might wonder why House Higangaoka can’t use animal droppings for gunpowder. Each and every one of my books will, at some point, need to explain what gastrobacter is so the reader has that context. If my novels were a single series written in chronological order, I could insert that explanation somewhere when it becomes relevant. This is not the case, though. My books can be read in any order. If I were to explain gastrobacter in MoKaM, but not MoLaB, I do a huge disservice to the readers who decide to read MoLaB first. Alternatively, if I put an explanation for gastrobacter into every book, each book would be chock full of worldbuilding that would be a chore to read. If MoKaM was somebody’s twentieth book in the Pentagonal Dominion series (and yes, I hope to write at least that many), they’re going to be sick of the gastrobacter explanation by then. They’ll likely even skip it.

Which brings me to the next point about footnotes: they’re easy to skip. Yes, that’s a feature, not a bug. I want them to be accessible to people who want to read them, and easily skipped by the people who don’t. They are never going to be important to the story and can be skipped if you don’t care about the worldbuilding or if you’re already familiar with the concept presented.

I believe many people dislike footnotes on a first glance because they have a knee-jerk reaction to what they perceive as cheating at worldbuilding. This is not the case. For me, it’s the only elegant way of explaining worldbuilding without pausing the action, and the only way it can be done on some e-readers where the glossary is difficult to access.