Thoughts on sidenotes/telling instead of showing?

[yueu]

Hello! I was just wondering if I could get some opinions on this: what do you guys think of little boxes or text between panels explaining a concept in more detail?

I'm making up a bit of a fantasy world with some made-up words and other imaginary things, and while in writing I know it's best to "show, not tell", I feel like trying to do that in a comic/through a visual medium can cause some confusion and awkwardness in the flow of scenes.

For example, in the culture I am creating people have two names; a "true" name known only by family and loved ones, and a nickname which is generally used by everyone else. This isn't really something I can show through my drawings, and just directly applying it in dialogue by calling a character by two names can get confusing. Yet having a character verbally explain the entire concept to another character also seems a little strange and unnecessary (since all characters are supposed to be familiar with this naming system).

The kind of note I'm thinking about I see used a lot in manga, usually to explain Japanese puns, and looks a bit like the text between panels on this page (sometimes put into a separate box or sideways).

Is this generally acceptable, or would it be considered tedious and the best option is to try and convey everything through drawings and dialogue?

[shiftingverses]

It's not so bad, but it can get excessive and it puts some people right off by insulting their intelligence. It's much better to explain things through dialogue and imagery, allowing the reader to naturally figure things out gives them a greater connection with the world you're creating. It is a balancing act, as being too obtuse can just be alienating – the opposite effect. You can afford yourself a certain amount of exposition to explain things through dialogue - known as an "idiot lecture". Which is still clumsy, but less immersion breaking than explanatory boxes out of nowhere. My main issue with them is they instruct the reader to become familiar with - and care about - a world by reminding them that they're not a part of it. It's much better to immerse people – create something they want to explore and learn about.

There is a much better way to do it though: clue your reader in. Give them a scenario or a line of dialogue that centres the concept and then use small moments to create a firm idea.

For example, the two name thing is easy enough (though I don't know much about what you're setting is), why not just demonstrate it by two characters referring to a third by two different names – and then having the non-close character say something along the lines of "So THAT'S her familiar name!?" If you then follow up with characters in situations where they're named differently by different people, it should give the reader plenty of scope to figure it out.

[punkarsenic]

i think sometimes its necessary, but as others have said you have to be careful not to get excessive as it gets a lil insulting. i once read a comic where some of the scenes were set in south london, with london slang, and everywhere there were asterisks. as an east londoner this was... really funny, and made the dialogue sound awkward, because it was spattered with these slightly-off-the-mark translations. in that case, it was something they could google, or get from context clues.

in other cases, id say its the lesser of two evils. either you explain it in a footnote, or youre stuck doing an exposition panel / page that youre struggling to fit in comfortably. like, for some elements of the culture and words.

[Hel]

In this case I would definitely avoid it. Don't explain your plot through side notes. I would generally only use those for explaining, like, cultural things or language discrepancies, like in the translated mangas. I've seen the true name/nickname thing done before without side notes, so I'm sure you can find a way.

[shiftingverses]

Bruv*, best allow** the side notes. Man's*** got no time for that.

*Friend
**Stop it
***I/he - collective pronoun that's applied flexibly.

[punkarsenic]

basically lmao

rudeboy* buff** sideman***

*referring to a stranger, derogatory
** good looking
*** sidekick / kissarse. ill allow em that one tho bc sideman means a TOTALLY different thing in america

[DMBrigman]

I would avoid it, as it can be clunky. If you feel you have to explain some things then it may be that they aren't written clearly enough for the reader. At the same time, most readers are smart and can figure things out based on context cues.

The familiar name, nickname thing can be easily solved by just having characters with different relationships use the different names. Admittedly, I was worried about that in my own story, I have a character whose name is Dionisia, her husband calls her Diot, and her grandkids call her Grandee, but so far no readers have mentioned they are confused. They relationship of the characters is spelled out and people "get" that a grandkid wouldn't be calling their grandma by their full name like a colleague would.

I think most people have experience with professional and personal names and nicknames. We all know at least one person who goes by different names, so it isn't a completely foreign concept at all. You can also have the character be offended that someone called them by the "wrong" name, and it could be an interesting character moment.

[shazzbaa]

This isn't really something I can show through my drawings

"Show, Don't Tell" doesn't mean "use pictures instead of words," just for the record. You can "show" using dialogue. "Show, Don't Tell" just means to let the reader see evidence of something and draw their own conclusions rather than telling them how to feel.
It's not always applicable -- as a silly example, having a character say "My name is Jack" is a bit of exposition, but if you try to figure out how to "show" that instead of directly saying it, you're tying yourself in knots for something that's really not worth it.

So, for the true name vs. nickname thing, I don't think it'd be a sin to have a note, as long as it's efficient and doesn't insult the reader -- like, a protagonist is introduced and a caption says "his truename is Sparrowhawk, but since truenames are sacred, he's called Ged," then that's pretty efficient and lets the reader come to some conclusions on their own -- now, a character calls him "Sparrowhawk" and we immediately understand something about that interaction, and have to piece together on our own what kinds of people are allowed to know or use that name. It still allows you to "show" the significance of that practice.

On the other hand, if your footnote is also a short explanation of this practice and its cultural implications, I think you'd be over-explaining, and explaining those things wouldn't have the same impact as watching interactions and piecing together exactly how the different names are used.

As DMBrigman and shiftingverses pointed out, it's usually possible to fit this sort of thing in the narrative -- if you just use the different names, I think folks would miss the significance of the Truename and assume it's just a nickname, but if there is space in the narrative for, say, a character to ask about another character's truename ("I can't tell you my truename, I just met you!" is exposition, but isn't weird for characters who know about truenames to say to each other), that can make the whole thing feel more natural.
In general, I think anything you can let the audience put together in that way feels a lot better, and makes your world feel real in a way that constant footnotes do not. Bringing together characters who feel different ways about established pieces of the world makes it much easier to talk about and also puts those pieces into context. But it's also sometimes not worth tying yourself in knots trying to avoid saying a single sentence directly -- so I think what's the best way to convey it is going to vary from example to example!

It's not so much about restraining yourself to "the drawings and dialogue" specifically, and more about looking for places for this cultural or world detail to be demonstrated through interactions and through the story itself!

[Cherry_sama]

I tried the text between panels for an older comic of mine, but I found it got really distracting really fast. So I deleted all of but one or two of them when I posted the comic online. It's like watching a movie with some random person giving commentary that you didn't ask for. Some people might like it, others...ehhhh...

[Kamikaze]

If you're really concerned about the specific name problem, something that may differentiate the nickname vs true name is having a figure of authority around. It's one thing for a bunch of friends to call someone by a nickname, but it's entirely another when an angry mom does that whole "LOREM IPSUM!! GET YOUR BUTT IN HERE!" Perhaps there's an elder in the culture that refers to them as their true name. If you give the person saying it obvious authority and formality in the culture (and I don't mean by being snobby or whatever, just that they're serious about their job) you can imply the formality of the true name they call your characters.

As for showing not telling? In my comic we get around the whole needless notes on world building by doing two things:
1. The most important. Give. Hella. Context. Clues. Use your page space to spell out the ideas as quickly and completely as possible. For example on this page and this page we talk about HIVES. They're kinda like security cameras that just kinda float around in the sky. We show the HIVE when we talk about it, have the character looking at, talking about 'needing eyes' and 'tapping a hive', again the same character is looking at these objects as the person they're talking to say's they can't 'tap in' because 'they've gone dark . It was easy our readers to understand that the characters are talking about hacking these flying security cameras.
2. We put anything that we feel would be a cool additional note, character trivia or something needing further explanation into the bottom text description. Internally my team calls them worldbuilding notes. We don't say anything about them, and they're usually under the 'cut'. So the only way our readers know about them is if they click that page. The readers who discover these world building notes absolutely LOVE them. Bonus is that it gives your readers the chance not only to talk about the comic, but put context into how the notes weave into the page, and greater story. They lead to some pretty interesting conversations.

Okay I lied. I have a third thing you gotta remember when you're doing this kinda work. When it comes to "Show, Don't Tell," you have to have faith in two things. You must have faith in yourself as a creator, and you must have faith in your readers. Comic readers aren't stupid. Trust them to be able to put two and two together.

[yueu]

Thanks everyone for your input! I'll try and avoid using side notes if I can try and find a better way to convey cultural concepts, and thanks for some of the advice on how I could employ dialogue and context clues