Your Writing Shouldn't Make Your Reader Feel Stupid

This article was originally published in The Writing Cooperative.

Why trying to sound smart makes you look dumb

The goal of writing shouldn’t be to make your reader feel bad about having a smaller vocabulary than you. Good writing shouldn’t demand that the reader have a dictionary on hand just to read your sentences.

Making the reader feel as if they are unqualified to read your writing is exactly how to lose a member of your audience. Keep it up, and the audience will get smaller and smaller.

Many people believe that if they flex their vast vocabulary within their writing, then they are a good writer.

Using big words doesn’t abruptly transform a rookie into a smart and adept writer with an infinitely deep toolbox of expressions. This writer may think that they can wield multi-syllable words and juggle outdated phrases to increase the quality of their writing.

Since when did something “get better” when it became more difficult to understand?

Good quality writing is determined by the reader, not the writer.

If the reader feels like they are doing backbreaking labor just to get through your sentences, or worse, can’t even comprehend the writing, something needs to change.

Reading should happen as a conversation between the reader and writer, an intimate exchange of ideas. A landscape for the reader to explore.

This intimacy can’t reach climax if the writing is too dense with overly-complex words. The reader gets bored and can begin to feel stupid or incompetent.

(Hint: it is rarely the reader who is incompetent).

An audience is a writer’s biggest support, a major scaffold for their career.Who benefits if the writer is making the reader feel unworthy? A reader shouldn’t feel like a foreigner in their own language.

One of the most prolific contemporary writers, Stephen King, offered kind words on the matter.

“One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones. This is like dressing up a household pet in evening clothes. The pet is embarrassed and the person who committed this act of premeditated cuteness should be even more embarrassed.”

Offering flowery descriptions full of adverbs and long words is not always clear to read. It can make a writer feel extra “literary,” though it often does little for the reader’s experience.

How do you not make the reader feel stupid? That’s the wrong question.

The right question is how do you improve your writing so you as the writer doesn’t look stupid.

Just a few off the top of my head:

1. Write concisely.
2. Write with the vocabulary you have and with the words that can best describe something (even if it means one-syllable words).
3. Avoid run-on sentences. Short sentences are easier to understand than long sentences.
4. Don’t abuse adverbs (especially words that end in -ly).
5. If you have to look up a word you want to use in your writing, there is probably a simpler, more effective word to use.

One of the most widely read authors to date is J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series. Her vocabulary can be understood by 11-year-olds, maybe even younger. Writing with a simple vocabulary didn’t make her look stupid. It certainly didn’t hurt her book sales.

Rowling focused on telling a great story instead of worrying about how “smart” her language came across.

Another piece of advice from Stephen King on the matter,

“In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it ‘got boring,’ the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling.”

Say what you have to say. Tell the story without making it flowery.

Vocabulary is a tool for more effective communication, not a flashy prop to show off.

Write in a way that the reader can best understand. Anything less, and most readers will stop reading. While there is no single “secret to success” to being a good writer, quality writing certainly doesn’t require the most expansive vocabulary.

Don’t make yourself look dumb and don’t make your reader feel stupid.