... in which the author demonstrates that readable writing does not equal good writing. ( )

This is an interesting compilation of essays on writing, length of paragraphs through the centuries, editing, the concept of writing as story telling. It is not nuts and bolts stuff for the writer. I would say read it after doing quite a bit of writing and then reflect on what you have written. A good book ( )

If you're familiar with modern word processors, you may be aware of a certain readability scale with the name Flesch involved. The same Flesh wrote The Art of Readable Writing, the work which I now review.

Flesch makes the gist of this tome to describe, as he spends many a chapters performing, how being writing as one talks can makes for a much more enjoyable pastime to the reader than to write in an inflated or otherwise convoluted manner, writing lengthy sentences and using cumbersome of obfuscating terms to describe otherwise mundane or simplistic terms, making one more readily understood when written in a condensed way. He also extols the joy of writing terse statements in the vulgar (or as some would say, common) tongue, foregoing grammatical conventions when they encumber the auteur.

Needless to say (though I say without hesitation), I disagree on the whole with Flesch regarding the fact that certain writers who use verbose dialogue or otherwise exhibit challenges when writing (James Joyce, a favorite author of mine, given as an example) make themselves less superior than those that write to the masses, writing their prose as dialect, such as Mark Twain.

I do agree, however, that the nature of language wishes itself more efficiency, and to use the term ofttimes spoken by computer scientists and mathematicians alike, it exhibits a certain Huffman coding. I find this efficiency algorithm embedded in our linguistic nature a facet of innumerably fascination, awaiting the day that our language has a single word for every possible statement, perhaps even becoming a logographic way of writing.

Nevertheless, I found the advice of Flesch to write as one speaks to be an impractical solution to making for more interesting writing, as especially, what may be interesting to one generation the next finds droll and boring (I cite for example, the Olde English version of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress). We should instead write to inform, to entertain, and to be understood, including textual notes where appropriate to distinguish our works from those that merely appeal to the masses of popular culture.

Counts--------------
Words 346
Characters 1780
Paragraphs 5
Sentences 9

Averages--------------------
Sentences per Paragraph 1.8
Words per Sentence 38.4
Characters per Word 5.0

Readability-------------------------
Passive Sentences 11%
Flesch Reading Ease 28.6
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 18.8 ( )

12/6/22

12/6/22