Bad Writers Make Readers Overuse the Dictionary

Great writers use common words to create simple sentences.

There are good reasons they do that. For example, they put being clear over sounding clever. And they want the meaning of the sentence, not the meanings of the words, to take center stage.

What great writers remind readers who deserve their writings is that words are a means to an end.

Readers do not read to read.

They read to get something that happens to be delivered through the written word.

That means that the value of the writer is mainly determined by what they deliver through words. Not by the number of words they have introduced the reader to. You can, as a writer, change the reader’s worldview—and as a result the rest of their life—without changing the number of words they know. Once you realize that, you stop trying to take the reader’s breath away with your vocabulary’s breadth.

Don’t get me wrong!

I also enjoy being forced to use a dictionary every now and then. But only every now and then. And provided the uncommon word adds, to the sentence, something valuable that every common synonym of the uncommon word lacks.

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Some of my books: Why I Write, F for Philosopher, On Friendship.