Footnote or no?

You can always include them all as a glossary after the story has ended. Then, anyone who cares to, can reference it at their own discretion.

The meanings can always be made obvious by providing proper context. That's where my focus would be.

I'm with Honest Bill. Ideally, context would explain everything to the reader. At the same time, however, I don't think adding footnotes to the end of the manuscript would be too distracting. I remember reading one of Michael Crichton's last novels (State of Fear—had to look it up) that had something like 50 pages of footnotes at the end. I don't remember being distracted; I just waited and read the footnotes at the end.

Provide context in both the writing and the story to make it clear to the reader what you're talking about.

Another vote for context, although I liked Terry Pratchett's footnotes in the early Discworld books. They took me out of the story, but they were funny and interesting.
Particularly if you're just defining 'colloquial words', which I'm taking as being in-world slang and expressions, context should do the job. And, people write historical novels and foreign countries with time-or-location specific words without footnotes. Or, as has been suggested, stick them all neatly at the back, so people who don't pick up on the context know where to find the explanations. (Also useful if the word is mentioned a few times, and the reader has forgotten the first reference: no flipping around, trying to track down where that first footnote was.

grayworld said:

I don't think adding footnotes to the end of the manuscript would be too distracting.

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"Footnotes" are not at the end of a book: they're at the bottom of a page.

The most recent novel I've read which had any footnotes was a spy fiction book written by Stella Rimington (retired head of one of the UK security services). She used them to explain one or two technical terms and colloquialisms. I was glad to have them available, on the pages where those terms were first used. They wouldn't have been so much use, nor so convenient, at the end of the book.

I agree with both the glossary and the provide enough context. I recently read through NK Jemisin's Dreamblood books. Those have glossaries at the end, but I really only glanced through the glossary once I was finished.

If you have something confusing you can always find an excuse to sneak a definition into the text of your story.

Personally, I hate footnotes in novels. I hate glossaries in novels. I don't want to be confused by "new words" while I'm reading - I want some sort of explanation right there so I can stay in the world as much as possible. I won't necessarily quit reading that book, but the storytelling would have to have been superb for me to pick up the next one.

shadowwalker said:

I want some sort of explanation right there

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It's the "right there", I suspect, which characterises the demand of so many readers.

For myself, I don't at all mind the occasional unknown word specific to a context with which I'm not familiar, as long as it's "right there".

I'm not interested in a "glossary" at the back of the book. Not when I'm reading fiction, for pleasure!

Lego Bono;8828821 said:

In my manuscript I have several footnotes

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Footnotes can amuse and delight the reader. But you don't necessarily want to use the format unless it does.

Lego Bono;8828821 said:

that are used to describe the meaning of certain colloquial words for the world I have created.

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Think back to the books you've read. There are thousands of foreign, specialized, or created words in them.
How many footnotes?

What you may be doing is trying to avoid one of the common and necessary writer skills -- explaining unfamiliar terms in context.
If so, I'd say to forget footnotes and just learn this skill.

Lego Bono;8828821 said:

A BR suggested to me that I should remove them

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See 'Calling a Rabbit a Smeerp' here.

Lego Bono;8828821 said:

Or would/do you not even care to know about fictional word's definition to being with?

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The reader probably does understand that different worlds have different animals/philosphical concepts/ customs. You don't have to add new words to tell the reader the place is different. You've painted that alienness in a hundred subtle ways.

But you do get to add vocabulary to describe unique features.

If you were writing about East Africa in the 1890s you'd use specific local words very naturally, because there'd be no standard English term to describe this stuff. Veldt or aardwolf would be made clear from context, and they'd be included less to inform the reader that 'foreign country is foreign', than because the story context demanded the words.

frimble3 said:

Another vote for context, although I liked Terry Pratchett's footnotes in the early Discworld books. They took me out of the story, but they were funny and interesting.

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I was about to mention Pratchett, but you beat me to it. However, Pratchett writes satire, and damgood satire. His footnotes are just part of the satire. Satire greatly widens the horizons of acceptable technique for the writer. And his footnotes never "took me out of" the story.

In a more standard novel, footnotes would be a put-off to me, as reader. Much better to make things clear in context, and not all that difficult to do. Many good writers have managed it.

caw

Confusion is good though. Do we really need to know the meanings of the words to understand them? Conlangs are a beautiful thing, but they don't always come with a glossary. Sometimes figuring it out is half the fun.

Some writers can make footnotes work in a novel. Not *my* taste, but as job says, some readers love them. I'd say ask a few other readers for feedback.

blacbird said:

I was about to mention Pratchett, but you beat me to it. However, Pratchett writes satire, and damgood satire. His footnotes are just part of the satire. Satire greatly widens the horizons of acceptable technique for the writer. And his footnotes never "took me out of" the story.

In a more standard novel, footnotes would be a put-off to me, as reader. Much better to make things clear in context, and not all that difficult to do. Many good writers have managed it.

caw

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Oh, they take me out of the story on occasion because I'm laughing so hard (like the aside about Reacher Gilt in Going Postal) but eventually I get back in

In a straight up novel, it depends on how interesting they are. If they have to be in there and it's impossible to provide context otherwise though, I'd prefer footnotes than end-notes - I don't like losing my page.

Noooooo! I don't care if you're David Foster Wallace back from the dead (well, maybe I'd care a little), no footnotes, only context. Footnotes antagonize your reader. Every time I encounter them in fiction, and sometimes in non, they irritate me. Just say it already, is what I think. I agree, if you really must, a glossary is ok, simply because your reader can avoid it altogether.

Footnotes can be distracting and jarring for me, it definitely takes me out of the story. I much prefer to be able to summerise the meaning of the word from the context, more satisfying and it flows much better.
I don't think you need a lot of explanation on each of the words, just enough to know if it is a food/animal/curse etc to put it in the right context. This helps enrich the story overall without distracting the readers by making them loose their train of thought when forced to look elsewhere for an explanation.