Dumbing It Down

[dr_mabeuse]

I need some advice on how to dumb down a piece of non-fiction writing.

An editor told me my piece on Vampirism and BDSM needs to be toned down to make it more appealing and understandable to the average magazine reader, which in this case is the human vampire-wannabe market of (mostly) young adults.

Admittedly, these aren't Rhodes Scholars, so how do I make my stuff more magazine-friendly? (Admittedly again, I do tend to write like a pompous asshat.)

Here's some examples of the writing...

==============================

Vampires are sexy, we all know that. It's no secret that the mystique of the vampire is loaded with sexual imagery and symbolism. Bram Stoker's Dracula was published in 1897, at the height (or depth) of the sexually repressive Victorian Era, and in hindsight we can see that the sensation it caused was in large part due to its subtle but highly-charged erotic message. The public's fascination with a charming monster who lived in the darkness and fed on beautiful young (read: virginal) women in their beds doesn't need a Freudian to explain it.

Dracula was a sexual force, pure and simple, and, more specifically he was the very embodiment of the Victorian Era's fear of sex: something sinister, dangerous, and evil that made monsters out of men. Stoker's vampire was a creature of pure desire, pure blood lust, and his bite (often delivered in the victim's own bed), made helpless addicts of those unfortunate souls. Ever since Dracula, the themes of penetration, death, and erotic possession, run through vampire literarure like a sexual trinity.

How much of this Stoker took from actual folklore and how much he invented is open to debate, but consciously or unconsciously, he played up this sexual angle and in so doing came up with one of the most potent sexual icons of modern times: the vampire. No one today doubts that the Vampire's enduring popularity is largely due to his eroticism.

...

Eleven years before Dracula's publication, Austrian psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing published his groundbreaking Psychopathia Sexualis, the first scientific treatment of sexual deviance. It was this book that gave us the terms sadism, masochism, and the concepts that go with them. The names may have been new, but the concepts certainly weren't. That pain and cruelty bear some remarkable and often arousing relationship to sex is not the finding of any one people or time, but is the common experience of humankind throughout history and beyond. What's in dispute, though, even today, is just what the nature of this relationship is. Is pain a necessary part of the process, an unfortunate consequence, or even perhaps a kind of inducement or embellishment?

 

[Safe_Bet]

I need some advice on how to dumb down a piece of non-fiction writing.

An editor told me my piece on Vampirism and BDSM needs to be toned down to make it more appealing and understandable to the average magazine reader, which in this case is the human vampire-wannabe market of (mostly) young adults.

Admittedly, these aren't Rhodes Scholars, so how do I make my stuff more magazine-friendly? (Admittedly again, I do tend to write like a pompous asshat.)

Here's some examples of the writing...

==============================

Vampires are sexy, we all know that. It's no secret that the mystique of the vampire is loaded with sexual imagery and symbolism. Bram Stoker's Dracula was published in 1897, at the height (or depth) of the sexually repressive Victorian Era, and in hindsight we can see that the sensation it caused was in large part due to its subtle but highly-charged erotic message. The public's fascination with a charming monster who lived in the darkness and fed on beautiful young (read: virginal) women in their beds doesn't need a Freudian to explain it.

Dracula was a sexual force, pure and simple, and, more specifically he was the very embodiment of the Victorian Era's fear of sex: something sinister, dangerous, and evil that made monsters out of men. Stoker's vampire was a creature of pure desire, pure blood lust, and his bite (often delivered in the victim's own bed), made helpless addicts of those unfortunate souls. Ever since Dracula, the themes of penetration, death, and erotic possession, run through vampire literarure like a sexual trinity.

How much of this Stoker took from actual folklore and how much he invented is open to debate, but consciously or unconsciously, he played up this sexual angle and in so doing came up with one of the most potent sexual icons of modern times: the vampire. No one today doubts that the Vampire's enduring popularity is largely due to his eroticism.

...

Eleven years before Dracula's publication, Austrian psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing published his groundbreaking Psychopathia Sexualis, the first scientific treatment of sexual deviance. It was this book that gave us the terms sadism, masochism, and the concepts that go with them. The names may have been new, but the concepts certainly weren't. That pain and cruelty bear some remarkable and often arousing relationship to sex is not the finding of any one people or time, but is the common experience of humankind throughout history and beyond. What's in dispute, though, even today, is just what the nature of this relationship is. Is pain a necessary part of the process, an unfortunate consequence, or even perhaps a kind of inducement or embellishment?

Read "Twilight". That should make enough brain cells commit suicide that a dumbed down rewrite should be easy...

 

[Stella_Omega]

You used too many poly-syllabic words, doc. Your brains are showing.

 

[Safe_Bet]

You used too many poly-syllabic words, doc. Your brains are showing.

Too many whats???

(Doesn't "poly-syllabic" mean a 3+ person marriage in eastern Europe?)

 

[FallingToFly]

I had no problem reading or comprehending any of that- so why does it need dumbed down?

I mean, hell, I'm a blonde college dropout model- doesn't that automatically make me the gold standard of dumb?

 

[Belegon]

I had no problem reading or comprehending any of that- so why does it need dumbed down?

I mean, hell, I'm a blonde college dropout model- doesn't that automatically make me the gold standard of dumb?

the blonde part is irrelevant and the college dropout part could be relevant depending on the reason.

Based on your writing/posting.... its not.


Doc, take any word with more than three syllables and break it down to it's definition. As a fiction writer, it is easy to get lost in the quest for that perfect word. For a magazine, you can't do that.

Maybe you could try tricking yourself? Write the story by inhabiting the POV of an intelligent but illiterate character? Imagine you are taking dictation from them?

 

[sr71plt]

There's an evaluation system called a Fog Index that will show how complex your writing is. You take a word count of sentences, syllables in words (and, for this system, a hyphenated word counts as one word), and clauses in the sentences. If you want to dumb your writing down, you reduce those ratios on all three fronts. Stella has already suggested that you can reduce the word polysyllable ratio. I can see also where you can reduce words, reduce the number of words in sentences, and reduce clauses (most easily by throwing out some conjunctions and reducing the number of compound sentences).

 

[penandpaper]

I need some advice on how to dumb down a piece of non-fiction writing.

An editor told me my piece on Vampirism and BDSM needs to be toned down to make it more appealing and understandable to the average magazine reader, which in this case is the human vampire-wannabe market of (mostly) young adults.

Admittedly, these aren't Rhodes Scholars, so how do I make my stuff more magazine-friendly? (Admittedly again, I do tend to write like a pompous asshat.)

Here's some examples of the writing...

==============================

Vampires are sexy, we all know that. It's no secret that the mystique of the vampire is loaded with sexual imagery and symbolism. Bram Stoker's Dracula was published in 1897, at the height (or depth) of the sexually repressive Victorian Era, and in hindsight we can see that the sensation it caused was in large part due to its subtle but highly-charged erotic message. The public's fascination with a charming monster who lived in the darkness and fed on beautiful young (read: virginal) women in their beds doesn't need a Freudian to explain it.

Dracula was a sexual force, pure and simple, and, more specifically he was the very embodiment of the Victorian Era's fear of sex: something sinister, dangerous, and evil that made monsters out of men. Stoker's vampire was a creature of pure desire, pure blood lust, and his bite (often delivered in the victim's own bed), made helpless addicts of those unfortunate souls. Ever since Dracula, the themes of penetration, death, and erotic possession, run through vampire literarure like a sexual trinity.

How much of this Stoker took from actual folklore and how much he invented is open to debate, but consciously or unconsciously, he played up this sexual angle and in so doing came up with one of the most potent sexual icons of modern times: the vampire. No one today doubts that the Vampire's enduring popularity is largely due to his eroticism.

...

Eleven years before Dracula's publication, Austrian psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing published his groundbreaking Psychopathia Sexualis, the first scientific treatment of sexual deviance. It was this book that gave us the terms sadism, masochism, and the concepts that go with them. The names may have been new, but the concepts certainly weren't. That pain and cruelty bear some remarkable and often arousing relationship to sex is not the finding of any one people or time, but is the common experience of humankind throughout history and beyond. What's in dispute, though, even today, is just what the nature of this relationship is. Is pain a necessary part of the process, an unfortunate consequence, or even perhaps a kind of inducement or embellishment?

Reading through that, I really don't see a problem. It's well written and the references are appropriate. However, I imagine you editor has a problem with you referencing a lot of different material in such a small space. You may feel as though the readers are learned, but I think the editor, just like a newspaper editor, expects them to be at an eighth grade level. Therefore, your references to Victorian and Freudian thoughts, the Holy Trinity, and sexual repression may need to be prefaced with explanations. Maybe something like, "The Victorian Era in which Bram Stoker's Dracula was published was a time when the church ruled over the common person's daily life." That may not be the best example, but it's all I can think of right now. As far as referencing Stoker's Dracula, perhaps a specific quotable example is on order.

Of course, I would take all of my advice with a grain of salt. I could be way off.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

 

[impressive]

It's not your vocabulary that's throwing them off, it's your sentence structure. Long, complex, multi-phrase sentences -- even comprised of monosyllabic words -- make for "heavier" reading. Try breaking up your compound sentences. Limit prepositional phrases to two consecutive.

Then, check the text for readability level in Word, which should show after performing a spelling/grammar check. Word uses the Flesch scale.

(Please don't get too dumb.)

 

[oggbashan]

I ran the extracts through Word 2007 Reading Ease and Grade Level system.

There were several contractions e.g. "weren't" that I (and it) would recommend changing to "were not".

However the results were:

Reading Ease 46%
Grade Level 12.7

Neither are good for a piece to be read by the general public.

I suggest drastically shortening some of the sentences by/and avoiding conjunctions such as "and" and "but".

Here is an Og revised start:

Vampires are sexy. The mystique of the vampire is loaded with sexual imagery and symbolism. Bram Stoker's Dracula was published at the height of the sexually repressive Victorian Era. The sensation it caused was mainly due to its subtle erotic message. The fascination with a charming monster who fed on beautiful virginal women in their beds does not need a Freudian to explain it.

Dracula was a sexual force, the very embodiment of the Victorian Era's fear of sex. He was sinister and dangerous, an evil that made monsters out of men. Stoker's vampire was a creature of pure desire, pure blood lust, and his bite made helpless addicts of unfortunate souls. Since Dracula, the themes of penetration, death and erotic possession, have run through vampire literature like a sexual trinity.

How much Stoker took from actual folklore and how much he invented is open to debate. He played up the sex and came up with one of the most potent sexual icons of modern times: the vampire. No one today doubts that the Vampire's enduring popularity is due to eroticism.

Og

 

[Verdad]

Hiya, Doc,

I agree with others, it's not that you've used many esoteric words, but the sentence structure needs some cleaning, like in Ogg's example. There's quite a bit of clutter in there, and I've noticed another two weaknesses that might be the problem:

1) "Was" appears in way too many sentences and ought to be replaced with a stronger verb, where possible. Relying on it is acceptable in academic writing, but in a fun article it has every bit the dulling effect it'd have in fiction.

2) The article seems too abstract, or maybe insufficiently researched. Concreteness is another of your excellent fiction-writing habits you could apply here. E.g. how did this "height of Victorian era" look? Mention a few things that were the craze at the time of Stoker's debut, or paint a picture of Victorian women fainting over the book or something. Take us there. I don't mean write a novel, but choose a few emblematic images to liven up the article. I think you need a better hook than "vampires are sexy", too. From the excerpt it looks as though you have more trouble with the concept than with the actual prose.

 

[FallingToFly]

I found a ARI online, I'll see if I can find the link again. It seemed pretty good, and gave suggestions for the most difficult sentences which should be rewritten.

(And 21st Century Cure, I discovered, reads at about a 7th grade level. No idea if that is good or bad.)

 

[Safe_Bet]

(And 21st Century Cure, I discovered, reads at about a 7th grade level. No idea if that is good or bad.)

It all depends which category it's in...

WAY high for Loving Wives...

Just about right for most of Lit...

and WAY low for Lesbian Sex...

 

[TheeGoatPig]

Newspapers tend to aim for a sixth grade level.

 

[FallingToFly]

My only lesbian pieces are probably about the same grade level as 21st, if not lower.

I generally don't read much in the category simply because they are so abstract and esoteric, they no longer are sexy. My opinion is- sex is sex, and done right, it's all about friction, angles, curves and balances- just like fast cars on slick highways. I don't like abstract concepts in my cars, either.

 

[Weird Harold]

Admittedly, these aren't Rhodes Scholars, so how do I make my stuff more magazine-friendly? (Admittedly again, I do tend to write like a pompous asshat.)

Here's some examples of the writing...

To verify my first impression, I used MSWord 97's readbility statistics on your example. that example is 6% passive voice, has a reading ease index of 43 and a F-K Grade level of 12 (which is as high as Word rates grade levels). It also averages nearly 24 word/sentence.

I went through and converted all connective ANDs to periods and added a subject, 'he,' after 'in so doing.'

The average words per sentence went down to 19, the passive voice disappeared, the reading ease index went up to 45 and the grade level dropped to 11.2.

I didn't try to deal with the parenthetical remarks, which bloat your sentence length and kill your readability.

Killing the parentheticals should further increase readability and lower the grade level and allow you to meet the editor's concerns without resorting to any of the polysyllabic verbiage.

I was taught that writing for a general audience should be targeted at seventh grade reading level, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have to "dumb it down," it just means that you have to write clearly and concisely.

ETA: one further edit, changing "Vampires are sexy, we all know that" to "Vampires are sexy. We all know that" changed the readability statistics even further:

Words/sentence from 19.6 to 18.6
Readability index from 49.2 to 50.2
F-K Grade Level from 11.2 to 10.8.

 

[oggbashan]

To verify my first impression, I used MSWord 97's readbility statistics on your example. that example is 6% passive voice, has a reading ease index of 43 and a F-K Grade level of 12 (which is as high as Word rates grade levels).

MSWord 2007 has higher F-K grade levels.

My Breathless Stargazing has an F-K grade level of 66.6

The reading ease index is zero.

Og

 

[jomar]

It's not your vocabulary that's throwing them off, it's your sentence structure. Long, complex, multi-phrase sentences -- even comprised of monosyllabic words -- make for "heavier" reading. Try breaking up your compound sentences. Limit prepositional phrases to two consecutive.

Then, check the text for readability level in Word, which should show after performing a spelling/grammar check. Word uses the Flesch scale.

(Please don't get too dumb.)

Shoot for about an 6-8th grade level to maximize understanding.

ETA: Once again bitten by the read first, post next bug.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

How very fucking depressing.

 

[jomar]

How very fucking depressing.

Yeah, you need an artsy fartsy type mag where you can write any wild thing you want and the readers nod knowingly even though they don't get it.

 

[SweetWitch]

I need some advice on how to dumb down a piece of non-fiction writing.

An editor told me my piece on Vampirism and BDSM needs to be toned down to make it more appealing and understandable to the average magazine reader, which in this case is the human vampire-wannabe market of (mostly) young adults.

Admittedly, these aren't Rhodes Scholars, so how do I make my stuff more magazine-friendly? (Admittedly again, I do tend to write like a pompous asshat.)

To be perfectly honest, I don't see a thing wrong with any of it. When I read fiction, I want something that flows easily and carries me away to a world of fantasy.

When I read non-fiction, I want to be informed, to learn something I don't already know, but if you have to change something, I would have to go with Imp's and Og's suggestions of breaking down the sentences a bit. There are a few $20 words in there that could be exchanged for their $5 counterparts, but, like I said, I like it just the way it is.

 

[john-the-author]

How very fucking depressing.

FWIW, something I always tell me technical communication writing students is that this isn't Great Art; this is making money and the editor will always know the market better than you do and (more importantly) they're the ones who authorize the checks.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

FWIW, something I always tell me technical communication writing students is that this isn't Great Art; this is making money and the editor will always know the market better than you do and (more importantly) they're the ones who authorize the checks.

As Robert Heinlein used to say, "The greatest sentence in the English language begins 'Pay to the order of . . . '"

 

[DeeZire]

I agree with the "take us there" approach. If the article opened with a scene featuring a contemporary couple getting dressed up for a BDSM vampire party, the reader would be invested in the outcome of this couple's adventures, and they'd slog through the factual stuff to see what motivates them. Taking this a step further, each accessory worn by the woman could link back to some factoid from the historical context you wish to present.

 

[wildsweetone]

Admittedly, these aren't Rhodes Scholars, so how do I make my stuff more magazine-friendly?

familiarise yourself with the magazines you're wanting to place your article in. i.e. buy 'em and read 'em, luv. check out the language used. how does that language differ from yours?

if they're young adults, do they want to be bombarded with historical facts, or do they want entertainment? heck you can write information in an entertaining way. you've got the skills. quit procrastinating and re-write the thing. it'll do you good.

Vampires are sexy, we all know that. It's no secret that the mystique of the vampire is loaded with sexual imagery and symbolism. Bram Stoker's Dracula was published in 1897, at the height (or depth) of the sexually repressive Victorian Era, and in hindsight we can see that the sensation it caused was in large part due to its subtle but highly-charged erotic message. The public's fascination with a charming monster who lived in the darkness and fed on beautiful young (read: virginal) women in their beds doesn't need a Freudian to explain it.

Vampires are sexy, we all know that. - okay first sentence we have fact, followed by author assuming the reader knows what the author means. telling, not showing. obviously i now know everything i need to know about Vampires so that's got me flicking to the next page of the magazine. but, to be fair i'll read the next sentence.

It's no secret... damn, i wanted secret, i wanted the dark mysterious mistique that surrounds vampires to tease me into the read, grab me by the neck and drag me in. don't sit there and tell me i know everything. what incentive do i have to want to continue on with the read?

...that the mystique of the vampire is loaded with sexual imagery and symbolism. really? why can't i picture an explicit sexual image right now? oh, it's because you've not even hinted at one for me to create.

first two sentences that should have me front and center and be begging me to read more, tell me that i know it all, thus leaving me with the impression i have no need to read further.

even stodgy magazine articles require a measure of interest on the reader's part. don't you think?


...
so are you going to write to the market, or find a different market? an enquiring mind wants to know.