Do You Need to Dumb Down Your Writing to Reach a Wider Audience?
Snapshots of literacy are taken every 10 years — and they don’t look promising.
Henry Ford said that when you sell to the classes, you eat with the masses, and when you sell to the masses, you eat with the classes. What he’s saying is that the audience you target can determine whether you eat at a Michelin starred restaurant or McDonalds.
The wider the audience, the more success — and we can take this same approach to writing and creativity. If you write for the elite, it may mean Taco Bell for dinner, but if you write for a much wider audience — you can dine with those better off.
It’s not that you need to neglect any aspect of your writing — but do you have to anguish over every single aspect of it? Do you need to dumb down your writing to reach a wider audience? Well, you might.
Not surprisingly, literacy rates are not great — and they’re only getting worse. What does this mean for your writing? Are you off the hook for creating line after line of elegant content — or can you let some things slide?
What does the data say regarding literacy rates, and how should you apply it to your own writing? Let’s dive into this.
