Most readers find writing—even about highly specialized and complicated topics—easier to understand when it focuses on the right kinds of characters.
The two paragraphs below retell a story you probably will recognize, and most readers will find the A version easier to understand. As you read, consider how A and B frame the story around different kinds of characters.
A.
Once upon a time, Hansel and Gretel were abandoned in the woods. As they walked along, they left a trail of breadcrumbs to help them find their way home. Deep in the woods, they came across a house made of candy and gingerbread. The house looked so good that they began to eat it. Suddenly, a witch emerged from the house. Hansel and Gretel were surprised and frightened and tried to escape, but the witch caught and ate them, bones and all.
B.
Once upon a time, two widely-known figures, familiar to many of us, were abandoned in the woods. As this family sub-unit consisting of two siblings, one male and one female, walked along, they left a trail of breadcrumbs to help them find their way home. Deep in the woods, these two juvenile human beings came across a house made of candy and gingerbread. This architectural edifice constructed of edible foodstuffs looked so good that the two small people began to eat it. Suddenly, a symbolic representation of danger and evil emerged from the house. The pair of young persons were surprised and frightened; they tried to escape, but the malevolent female supernatural entity caught and ate them, bones and all.
Done
Most readers find paragraph A easier to understand than paragraph B, because paragraph A features widely familiar characters. Most readers will find “Hansel and Gretel” and “the witch” more recognizable than “two widely known figures” and “a symbolic representation of danger and evil.”
But while A is more readable, student writers often try to write more like version B because they think it sounds more professional. Certainly, professionals often write about characters that might seem complicated and inaccessible to the rest of us; however, that doesn’t mean that creating unnecessarily unclear characters will make you sound convincingly professional.
Of course, sometimes you’ll want to tell stories about technical objects or concepts, and there are ways to do this well. For example, let’s look at one story an anthropologist might tell about fairytales:
C. Striking out in new directions, the twin approaches of structuralism and ethnopoetics, which gained currency in the 1960s, de-emphasized the manifest content of folktales. Structuralists found a hidden geometry in verbal art, detecting binary oppositions such as male and female, old and young, or raw and cooked, while practitioners of ethnopoetics concentrated on style, discovering couplets, stanzas, pauses, and other features that revealed the narrative as a kind of poetry.
While version C is admittedly inappropriate for most readers, anthropologists have little trouble following it.
For analysis, click here.
C. Striking out in new directions, the twin approaches of structuralism and ethnopoetics, which gained currency in the 1960s, de-emphasized the manifest content of folktales. Structuralists found a hidden geometry in verbal art, detecting binary oppositions such as male and female, old and young, or raw and cooked, while practitioners of ethnopoetics concentrated on style, discovering couplets, stanzas, pauses, and other features that revealed the narrative as a kind of poetry.
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Experts typically expect stories in which the characters are the specialized concepts of their field. Groups of experts – which we call “tribes” – share a vocabulary for talking about ideas that are of interest to them. Get the characters wrong, and you’ll seem like an outsider to the tribe’s experts. But tell your stories about the tribe’s characters, and you’ll sound like an initiate.
