Footnotes the solution to my problems?
One of the problems I frequently have when writing (for this blog or otherwise) is my wish to convey perhaps too much information. Sometimes interesting tidbits don’t really fit in with the flow of my writing, so I add them as parenthetical asides (like this right here). In many circumstances, I guess it’s just me being lazy and avoiding somewhat extensive rewriting to get everything to fit together just so. Other times, there really is no other way to do it. Or is there?
Are footnotes the correct way to do it? Justine Larbalestier seems to think so. Just look at her recent blog post on her travels in Italy. She’s using footnotes for all of the asides that I would be using parenthetical phrases for. Does it work?
I’m not sure it does (and here’s where I contradict the title of my blog post). Writing is very much a linear medium. I don’t like jumping around to and fro between the main body of a work and appendices. I just want to go from start to finish and be done with it. So I don’t click on footnotes because they interrupt the flow of my reading, whereas I do read all parenthetical asides because they are embedded in the text. Sometimes I try reading all the footnotes after finishing up the main text, but then they often don’t make much sense out of context, and I’m too lazy to go back up and figure out what they refer to. Long story short, I don’t bother reading footnotes anymore.
Just as an aside (the non-parenthetical variety, thankfully), is there anyone out there who actually skips parenthetical asides? I know parentheses theoretically mean “optional”, but all they really mean to me is “this content could be excised without affecting the flow of the rest of the sentence, but you know you’re going to read it anyway”. Literature would be so much duller without all of those intriguing tidbits enclosed between those lovely curvy punctuation marks; how could anyone possibly skip them? (Or is there anyone who only reads the parenthetical asides and nothing else? Try it!)
April 12th, 2008 at 14:46
OTOH, some literature makes extensive use of footnotes; try David Foster Wallace sometime. :-)
April 12th, 2008 at 16:33
I’ve long been an abuser of the parenthetical comment, and have been working lately to avoid using them. It’s too soon to say if it’s improved my writing, or not.
April 12th, 2008 at 19:29
Your long winded, kitchen sink writing (with content wrapped in parentheses) is something I enjoy as is. I believe notation silliness would just detract from the value of your work. Footnotes would change the tone considerably. I’m much more interested in sitting down to read a fun little account or diatribe from the world of Cyde than I am in reading the same material presented as though it were an encyclopedia article. Keep it informal. Or less formal.
April 12th, 2008 at 22:40
Yes, I agree with snaked your informal style of blogging is one of the reasons that you’re one of my favourite blogs. You keep the tone conversational while presenting some good information. A real world conversation wouldn’t be dry with all the good, “unrelated” or “unimportant,” bits footnoted, it would have all kinds of parenthetical comments and tangents. Keep going with what you have, it works. ^_^
April 13th, 2008 at 00:39
I have pretty much the same experience with footnotes - they keep the text looking clean, but not that great for the reader.
Parentheses do affect the flow of the text when they get out of hand, though. I think a good general rule is that you should never need to take a breath just for the parentheses.
April 14th, 2008 at 16:16
Ever read Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell? The footnotes practically comprise a book in themselves. Great fun.
April 15th, 2008 at 19:27
I confess I’m partial to using footnotes. I even sometimes footnote my footnotes. It got to be such a running gag that I’ve been parodied for it. But maybe that was because my readers don’t like them as much as I do.
I’m also a parenthetical remark abuser. I’ve started trying to see if I could chop out the remark into its own sentence, or at least comma setoff phrase.
April 17th, 2008 at 00:58
Oh, and I agree with Jakel and snaked, though I’m not so certain about the kitchen sink…
June 19th, 2008 at 21:32
[...] errors especially well when many people tend not to? I don’t think it’s just because I personally enjoy using parentheses so much that I keep a careful watch for abused parentheses everywhere I go, like some superheroic defender [...]