When Your Writing Befuddles One Person, What Do You Do?

A lesson in the objectivity of subjectivity

When a reader or an editor or a vicious troll or some poor sap of a friend you’ve talked into looking over your story says, “I don’t understand this part.” Do you:

A) Explain it to them
B) Tell them to f-off
C) Rewrite the bit
D) Sulk and move on

If your answer is anything but C (the answer is always C, right?) then your writing has suffered and you could be accused of being obstinate, thin-skinned, or both. Don’t be those things. 

Image: Pexels/Ketut Subiyanto

As an editor, I will often select a word or phrase or entire sentence or even a paragraph and make a note that says: “I don’t understand this.” Writers will sometimes bristle and go on to explain it to me. My response: “Don’t explain it to me. Explain it to the reader.”

One person’s objective view of clear and effective writing is another’s subjective take on it (often referred to by the offended party as baloney or bullshit). One person’s utter subjectivity can be an obvious fact in the mind of someone else. You can argue with me about this view of writing reality, but it’s my reality, and I’m the editor. Or the reader. Doesn’t matter. If you argue with it, then you really need to read on and let me explain how I think about this, and how I ask writers to think about it, and how to overcome this insidious form of, shall we say, writer’s block, not for lack of a more uncomplimentary term (myopia comes to mind; stubbornness would be to kind).