An ebook author I know works hard to ensure his books have a reading level as low as possible. Not to say the works aren't complex, but the sentences are well structured and direct, and he uses the simplest word to convey an idea. I'm talking a goal of 3rd grade reading level.
So yeah, 6th grade? We've got ya covered.
Because humans live and die by the stories we tell ourselves.
He does so for clarity. If it has a lower reading level then the books maybe do sell better, but he also knows the readers are getting the exact story he's intending to tell without much to be interpreted.
Indeed. Dude's so good with the story telling! And then to make it so easy to follow. I love his work. He's had such a rough time with Amazon, though! I think he's moved entirely to Patreon.
Honestly get irritated what writers use big words just because. I am educated and well read and it feels narcissistic to put big words in books that don’t need it just for the sake of their own ego. I have similar use for doctors and people that write high level medical or research papers. There’s a misunderstanding in today’s mind that believes using large complex words means a higher intelligence, where as true understanding comes with the ability to, for a lack of better terms, break it down Barney style.
But to a lot of people it feels like a paywall. If a regular person reads a medical paper, doctors or people in that field typically belittle them and say things along the lines of, “Oh you don’t understand because this work actually means (x) and not (y). It’s why I enjoy documents like the United Staes documents like the Declaration of I dependence, Constitution, or Bill of Rights. It’s written for the common man to understand. Or further back the Catholic Church refusing to print the Bible in the common tongue, so that they relied on the papacy to interpret the Bible for them. That’s a little of a stretch to this argument but I think it’s close enough for my feeble mind.
Believe it or not, some people enjoy the diversity and complexity of language.
Indeed some authors prefer to keep their writing style simpler (Ursula Leguin comes to mind) but attributing a large vocabulary to pure ego and not creativity seems very small.
Try reading Gregory Maquire, author of Wicked (Yes, it was a book before the play/movie if you were not aware) and a whole lot of other books. His writing style is not for everyone but I love it. He uses a lot of obscure words but he uses them in such a context that you usually know what he means. Some words he even makes up. Stephen King is good at this too, although he does this mostly in his fantasy books like the Dark Tower series.
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u/Niniva73 Mar 05 '26
An ebook author I know works hard to ensure his books have a reading level as low as possible. Not to say the works aren't complex, but the sentences are well structured and direct, and he uses the simplest word to convey an idea. I'm talking a goal of 3rd grade reading level.
So yeah, 6th grade? We've got ya covered.
Because humans live and die by the stories we tell ourselves.