: Re: Protagonist constantly has to have long words explained to her. Will this get tedious? A while back, I redrafted my NaNoWriMo 2017 story, but it still needs another draft. This question is about

@Kaufman555

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It sounds very gimmicky, to be honest. I think you should think of more different ways in which her lower education would show, and switch it up a bit. Etiquette comes to mind, not being able to read, not being able to swim, being able to practical things of a commoner...

As a joke, it can work quite well if done right. For example having her ask "Who's Clandestine and why is she building tunnels?" or having her partner reply with "Clandestine means he's being an arse who wants to show off his fancy words in front of us" instead of actually answering the question. If you first build up the thing that she has to ask for words sometimes, then such a surprising joke would be a cool payoff to that buildup. But even that joke has a short half-life and should be used very sporadically, maybe even only once. And it sounds to me like you're not trying to be humorous anyway.

Generally, your phrasing "to pad things out just that little bit more" is obviously alarming, because that's a bad reason to do anything. If it adds nothing to the story anymore, then leave it out. But do respect the character trait you've built up and don't ignore it! What you could do is that when someone says something complicated, have the narrator mention that your protagonist had the word explained to her before she answered. It might also be interesting what she does about this handicap that she has. Maybe she starts a mental list of new words, similar to Arya Stark's list of people she wants to kill? Maybe she starts using the words herself very often, and in slightly inappropriate contexts?

But yeah, all in all I think it's a bit gimmicky, and in thinking about it I always come to the conclusion that it should be played for laughs or not done at all. I don't think you can have a dramatic and serious story with that kind of gimmick in it. Mention it at the beginning, and mention that she's frustrated by it. Maybe mention that she starts ignoring words she doesn't know, but reminds herself to look them up later. Then you can skip having to explain every complicated word and keep moving forward with the actual story.

Side note, this setup would be quite nice for a children's story, though.

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