Day 20 1/3/12 (4:45 a.m.)
How Readable Are You?
Your “voice” is your voice. Your “style” is your style. Don’t attempt to “sound like” some famous writer. Many beginning writers feel that they have to add something to their “voice” on the printed page. Who you are on the page is who you are in life, just as sophisticated, just as worldly, or not. It doesn’t matter. Keep writing and keep cutting away at the awkwardness that might creep into your writing. Be a natural. As the French novelist, Francois René de Chateaubriand wrote, “The original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.”
Yesterday, I wrote 619 words in an hour. I have no idea if someone else could imitate what I wrote, but I’ve been told that my writing style is easy to read. I attribute this to my training and scriptwriting background and the subsequent years of writing without employing adjectives and adverbs. Generally, the first time I write something, it’s very lean. Often, I have to go back and add descriptors, similes, and the senses. I’m always asking myself, how does my character feel? What does she see and smell? What is she hearing? I have a sticky note on my monitor that says: feel/touch, taste, smell, see, hear. Without the senses, it’s like watching a play without a set. Samuel Beckett was a master of this, but most readers—myself included— enjoy description. After I write dialogue, I read it out loud and ask, would my character really say that? Is this how people actually talk?
There are actually tools you can use to determine what grade level education will understand and comprehend what you’ve written. Go to http://www.writingtester.com/ and copy and paste what you’ve written. I did this with the paragraph above. Here are my results: Readable Score: 57 (The higher the score the easier the article is to read!) Grade Level: 6.
Here are the results from a paragraph (pasted below) from my novel: Readable Score: 61 (The higher the score the easier the article is to read!) Grade Level: 6
“I heard about Wendell.” Jane said in her most sympathetic voice. The last thing Jane wanted to do was listen to the details so before Rebecca could finish the sentence, Jane changed the subject. “Well then, say hello to Mr. Boehm for me.” With that, Jane gave Rebecca another sympathetic smile and continued on her way. Jane didn’t want to be rude, but she didn’t really have anything to say to this young married mother who had managed to get herself out of her parent’s house just long enough to get married, have one child, and lose her husband to the war. Now, she was back where she started. The unfairness of the situation made Jane shutter. How could God let something like this happen? It was one of those questions that crossed Jane’s mind, especially when something bad occurred, like the war, which was all anyone ever talked about.
Since most newspapers are written at an eighth grade level, as I rewrite, I should probably work on taking my writing up a few notches. The best way to do this is to write compound, complex sentences and more complicated vocabulary. But, is this my style? I think not.
What I strive for in my writing is a simple, easy to read, page-turner with a powerful underlying (though not necessarily obvious) message. My characters, especially Jane, are flawed, but they face a moral dilemma. I want to make it easy for my readers to get through the story so they can see the big picture, and get to the lesson.
