Diagrams in Storytelling

In April, I wrote a short story called Phoenix Landing.  This was another instance where I was vaguely inspired by an Elegant Literature prompt to explore on paper an idea rattling around in my head for some time prior; it began at three thousand words and doubled from there, so decidedly unsuitable for the contest.  Since it only vaguely had anything to do with the prompt, I did not worry overmuch about this, and instead intended the piece for submission to other forums that accept longer pieces, perhaps even as a serialization, as one member of my writing group suggested.  As I was receiving feedback from my writing group, though, I realized that a significant aspect of the story was not coming through as well as I wanted.

Underpinning Phoenix Landing is the notion of a system of habitable moons in orbit around a gas giant.  Because of their proximity and low gravity (relative to Earth), I propose that space travel technology would develop at an earlier civilizational stage than it did in our own history.  The main event of the story involves an agrarian, but resource-constrained moon interacting with an industrialized moon with an unusual orbit that brings it in frequent close proximity to the hosting gas giant, resulting in excess volcanism.  This is complicated enough to explain explicitly like this – it was far more opaque when I attempted to explicate it through in-world exposition, where the gas giant is referred to as the “Parent,” other moons are referred to as “siblings,” and ordinary planets orbiting the sun are called “orphans.”  Most of my readers, therefore, did not realize the orbital dynamics that were so core to the story’s interest.

Therefore, I paused in my revisions and began working out the actual orbital dynamics of this fictional planetary system (which would be a lot easier if I still had access to some of the tools I had with free educational licenses or on my professional computer, instead of doing it by hand).  Even when I finish that effort, however, I will be faced with a problem that I am already considering: how to present this information to the reader?

Plenty of hard science fiction books include diagrams and even calculations, and fantasy is famous for its maps, though neither are usual in short stories, and most submissions don’t have a way to consider such non-text content.  Outside of those practical considerations, I want to consider what the best way, from a storytelling perspective, is to convey this information to my readers.  A diagram or solar system map might work, but it isn’t all that elegant.

To explore alternatives, I began by pondering what information, precisely, I want to convey to the reader.  From the start of the story, I want to communicate the basic elements of the system, especially the gas giant “Parent.”  I thought my description of the alien sky, with the striated mass of the host planet evoking images of Jupiter, would be sufficient, but I now think including a static diagram of the basic planetary system at the beginning would help set the scene for the story context.  Even better would be making it look like an old-style scientific diagram, an in-world artifact.

Maybe that would be enough, but since I was thinking about including one diagram, I wondered if more might bring further benefit.  I struck upon the idea of including a diagram preceding each section.  For instance, the second section might include a depiction of the hypothesized trajectory for the Phoenix moon, another could be preceded by a diagram of the relay satellite’s placement, another showing the orbital dynamics that result in the Path of the Dawn, and the last section, naturally, including a trajectory plan for the inter-lunar voyage.  All of this means I have a lot more math (and diagramming) to do before I can begin rewriting the story, but I’m intrigued by the possibilities.

It feels a little like cheating, looking to use diagrams in a short story like this to communicate what I am not communicating adequately with the text.  I’ve not previously explored the use of diagrams or pictures in books beyond the occasional map, and even those tend to be more of a bonus than something integral to the story.  I rather think this is an opportunity to do that, even if it makes the story’s path to publication more difficult.  Of course, I have to do the math first, so this project will be some time in coming to fruition.  Have you seen any examples of this kind of storytelling done well, or where it worked poorly?  Share them in the comments below.