Last week we considered how important it is for you to communicate clearly with your readers. (If you missed it, click on Put yourself in your readers' shoes.)
This week I have tips for you on
how to accomplish that.
Years ago, when I studied
journalism, instructors taught us to aim our writing at eighth graders—that is,
to write material that eighth-grade students can easily understand.
Recently I saw the same advice so it must still be the best practice.
What’s true for journalists is true
for memoirists: Aim at an eighth-grade audience.
Ken Follett, Welsh author, says his
goal is to make his prose “utterly easy to understand.” He calls it “transparent
prose.”
“I’ve failed dreadfully,” Follet
says, “if you have to read a sentence twice to figure out what I meant.”
Write clearly.
Concisely.
Transparently.
Simply.
Shane Snow says it this way: “We
shouldn’t discount simple writing, but instead embrace it. . . .
“We should aim to reduce complexity
in our writing as much as possible.
“We won’t lose credibility in doing
so,” Shane says. “Our readers will comprehend and retain our ideas more
reliably. And we’ll have a higher likelihood of reaching more people.”
“Writing text that can be
understood by as many people as possible seems like an obvious best practice,”
write Rebecca Monteleone and Jamie Brew. “But . . .
“ . . . from news media to legal
guidance to academic research, the way we write often creates barriers to who
can read it. Plain language—a style of writing that uses simplified sentences, everyday
vocabulary, and clear structure—aims to remove those barriers.” (Read more at “What Makes Writing More Readable?”)
Read your manuscript aloud.
Listen for words or sentences or paragraphs
that could confuse readers.
Rewrite them,
fixing anything that’s not precise.
Make your writing easy to understand.
Your readers will thank you.
Come back
next week. We’ll look at additional ways to write your memoir with clarity.
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