John Matthew Fox helps authors write better fiction. He is the founder of Bookfox, where he creates online courses for writers, provides editing and offers publishing assistance. He is the author of "The Linchpin Writer: Crafting Your Novel's Key Moments" and “I Will Shout Your Name,” a collection of short stories.
Is Your Book Unreadable?
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Hi Bookfoxers, Rudolf Flesch, an Austrian who hid from the Nazis in WW II, wondered why English sentences were so difficult to read. He thought writing should be simple, but that most people cluttered it up needlessly with complex language. So he gave two pieces of advice:
And Flesch invented a formula that calculated words and syllables in sentences, and assigned a score of zero (super difficult) to 100 (very easy).
If you're curious, you can enter a passage of your writing to find out YOUR score. Only 5 bestsellers since 2000 have had a readability score higher than 9th grade (which is about 60 on the scale). But the trouble is that these readability scores only measure word length and sentence length. They don't measure:
Now, about this time you're wondering: Wait, is John going to recommend this Flesch guy's system? Is he going to tell me to simplify all my writing? Well, not exactly. It's a bit more complex than that. I'll tell you how this should impact your writing, but first, a word from our sponsor:
Okay, so how should writers think about a readability score? Armed with this information, what should they DO? Well, it depends on your audience. Let's separate them into three big buckets.
Adjust your writing for your audience. Adjust your writing based on natural capabilities (some people can't write like David Foster Wallace, and that's find and good). Adjust your writing based on the type of books you like to read. And remember, you don't only have to write at one level over the course of your career. Cormac's McCarthy has written books with wildly different complexities.
(Public service announcement: please do not have your 3rd grade read that book.) Another example of an author with wildly different books is E.L. Doctorow.
The upshot? Just because you CAN use big words, you don't have to. Feel free to adjust the complexity of each of your books, based on the subject matter and the characters. After all, after Faulkner insulted Hemingway by saying “He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary," Hemingway fired right back with this zinger: "Does he really think big emotions come from big words?" I think there's a time to write like Faulkner and a time to write like Hemingway. There's also a time to read both of them and revel in the pleasures of both. Okay, let's talk about some takeaways. As a writer, what can you learn from this? In general, if you want to have a bigger audience, and have a better shot at the bestseller list, you should use simpler words and less complex sentences. The data backs this up, with that bestseller statistic above. In general, almost all bestselling books are written at middle-school or grade-school level. This, honestly, is why YA is so popular with all age ranges: it's relatively simple and easy to read, which is why so many people in their 20s and 30s and 40s read mostly YA. But maybe selling more copies isn't your only goal. Maybe you have other goals, like:
Then I say: more power to you. The world of books would be impoverished if all writers conformed their writing into a narrow space. Fly your freak flag. Write something strange, something unusual, something complex. The people who are meant to read it, will read it. I guess my point is that writers should go into their books with a kind of deliberate action: they should target a certain diction level and sentence complexity because it's right for the audience that they're seeking. Don't be one of those writers who uses 20-dollar graduate-level words, and then complains that they didn't become a bestseller. You were deliberating limiting your audience by your artistic choices (and that's perfectly fine!). There's only one more piece of information that you need from this email. I know, I know, you're curious. What's the Flesch score of this email? It's a 69 (about an 8th - 9th grade reading level). Happy writing! John Matthew Fox |
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John Matthew Fox helps authors write better fiction. He is the founder of Bookfox, where he creates online courses for writers, provides editing and offers publishing assistance. He is the author of "The Linchpin Writer: Crafting Your Novel's Key Moments" and “I Will Shout Your Name,” a collection of short stories.
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