Footnotes?? (1 Viewer)

[kthxbambi]

When they say that in a short story you have to footnote
what exactly do you have to footnote? quotes? song lyrics? references to literary characters?
and in my story, i use alot of drug slang, so if for example i wrote

"he met Mary-Jane at the shop"

do i need to footnote mary-jane and write 'Marijuana' at the bottom of the page? i think it will ruin the flow of the story

 

[wendus]

i don't think it's necessary to footnote EVERYTHING or it'd seem like you're relying on your footnotes to tell the story. but do footnote what you think the markers won't understand. in the case of mary-jane i don't think you should footnote it simply because it'd detract from the story like you said. but that's just IMO.

like, if you're using technical terms somewhere obviously footnote those.