Today

[xenith]

is on page 259 of 400 of Pride and Prejudice. There is a footnote (1) on page 259. You can't suddenly start with footnotes on page 259.

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Comments

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

What page *can* footnotes suddenly start?

[monissaw.livejournal.com]

1 or 2 seems to be the usual situation :)

Or 3 or 4 or something in the first half of the book at least. It's disconcerting. Turns out there's 3 of them, within just 30 pages, as if the 'editor' started to put them in and thought beter, but missed some. Or someone else took them out and missed some. Or something weird.

I don't like footnotes in fiction.

Or endnotes, as these actually are.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

I swear that my next novel will not have footnotes. Truly.

[monissaw.livejournal.com]

That's good. Um, does that mean previous novels had them or didn't? ;)

Now I think about the things, Richard Harland's book that I've forgotten the title of has footnotes and they were worked. So maybe author added footnotes and/or footnotes in comedy novels are OK.

But never endnotes. When you have to go back and look at them, it disrupts the flow of the narrative, and you *always* have to look at them.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

Whew. I was going to run and hide. Illuminations has footnotes.

[monissaw.livejournal.com]

:) Just as long as they don't take 3 lines to clarify the meaning and usage of a reasonably common word

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to say : )