List of books and upcoming books

Readability

The one thing people always wonder is how can they get people to read their story? While they are trying to come up with a story that is intriguing and keeps the reader's interest they tend to forget one important thing, readability.

Readability is where the reader can read the story effortlessly without getting stuck on a sentence or word. While most writers are striving for a fantastic story, they forget one key detail, people need to be able to read the story.

This is where a thesaurus can be helpful or a hindrance. A thesaurus can be helpful by not being redundant in words but it can be harmful if you constantly use words people don't understand. If someone doesn't understand certain words, they become frustrated.

If you're looking to write that bestseller, don't. The minute you do, you already fail. Write a story that you enjoy and people will fall in love with it. This is why I keep it simple. I would rather write something I enjoy writing then worry about trying to impress critics. If I did, I would never write a single word.

Writing is always something that can be improved on and fixed.  Editing helps with that.  When we're in school we're always told to write the first draft then make revisions until all errors are eliminated.  They never tell you about readability.

When I was a child I had been diagnosed with a comprehension problem where I didn't understand what I was reading or reading the same thing over and over.  While most kids we flying through books I wasn't.  It took longer for me to read and I was slower especially after I was diagnosed with this problem.

My mom stepped in and taught me to visualize what I was reading like a movie in my head. That helped. She also had me explain to her what I read, that was comprehending the wording better.  It helped with book reports.

I applied this to writing. I wanted to be able to read what I wrote making the readability easier for not just myself but others as well. Are there mistakes?  Probably but at least the story can be read.

People will be quick to point out the mistakes but forget writing is a process and not perfect.  Trust me I do tend to go back and read my own work, finding the errors in the process.  Autocorrect loves to change words on me.

This doesn't mean I still can't read the story and enjoy it.

I also look at readability when I read someone else's story. If the story isn't making any sense to me or I'm getting stuck on something I quit reading.  Nothing is worse than reading something that makes absolutely no sense when you have a comprehensive problem.

I'm not looking for perfection or being hateful towards someone's work but I do look at it to see if it makes sense. In case you're wondering, yes I do read and have read many different stories.  If I'm not writing, I'm usually reading unless my brain says nope, take a break.

I have come across stories where the description caught my attention. That will get me to read then I will check out the story. Now the story is a different ball game.  If I find the readability to be poor and/or the story doesn't make any sense, I will stop reading immediately. 

I had a chance to talk to my mom about this because she reads a lot and she said it wasn't the covers that drew her to a book but the description of the story. That's how she found her favorite authors.  She also had a chance to read The Gray Brothers and their other books and liked them quite a bit.  If you think it's because I'm her daughter, wrong. She is probably the hardest critic out there.  We've battled over my writing, constantly.

I did ask what she thought and her answer was it was well-written and she understood it, telling me things about the characters which was helpful.  This told me the readability was where it needed to be.

Look at your story and go back and read it. See if anything can make the flow better or if it's fine as it is.  If you're not sure then have someone check it out. Whatever you do and I can't stress this enough, do not under any circumstance cuss at them and call them names.  You asked them for feedback. You may not get the answer you want but at least it can be helpful.  Just thank them and go back and work on it if anything needs to be fixed.

Now, you have a job to do. Someone is waiting for your story. Go write it.