How to Make Writing Incomprehensible

I’m not going to teach you how to make writing incomprehensible. Instead, I’ll show why some writing is incomprehensible — and how to fix it.

Incomprehensible writing is everywhere. It’s a big problem. Many writers don’t:

1. Identify the goal they hope to achieve.
2. Know their audience.
3. Shape their message strategically, logically, and cohesively in order to speak directly to that audience and achieve that goal.

Even writers who identify their writing goal, know their audience, and shape their message with intention sometimes have trouble finding a way to communicate that argument effectively. Well-designed arguments sometimes don’t live up to their potential when readers:

• Need to work too hard to translate ideas into a story they can understand. (Remember my telling of Hansel and Gretel vs. the story from Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm?)
• Need to fill in any missing ideas from their own knowledge base.
• Judge writing to be indirect, abstract, dense, or unclear.
• Interpret the writing in an unexpected way.
• Distrust or become confused about the information shared.

Choose Characters as Agents

Good writers frame the story they’re telling mostly around characters. Audiences process stories through characters. For example, Hansel and Gretel, Luke Skywalker, and Katniss Everdeen are characters. However, characters can also be organizations, institutions, other living creatures, tangible objects, concepts, and abstract entities.

Characters are either (1) agents of action or (2) receivers of action.

In the examples below, character as agents are in blue:

1. SmithCo offers employees four weeks of vacation, though the company refuses to pay employees an annual bonus.
2. Hansel and Gretel is a fairy tale.
3. Paris may be the most beautiful city in the world.
4. The neighbor’s dog barked all night.
5. The Lenovo Yoga laptop is a solid alternative to the MacBook Pro.
6. The lease agreement requires renters to pay for all damages caused by their pets.

The words in blue are people, places, and things that most people can picture or understand. Some of these characters are more challenging than others. That said, even if you’ve never signed a lease agreement, you’re probably able to grasp the general concept of a lease agreement.

How to Make Writing Incomprehensible

To make writing incomprehensible, start by nominalizing verbs or making them passive. Then eliminate the characters as agents. Let’s take a closer look at #2:

SmithCo offers employees four weeks of vacation, though the company refuses to pay employees an annual bonus.

Step One: Nominalize verbs or make them passive:

The offering of four weeks of vacation for employees by SmithCo is offset by the refusal of payment of an annual bonus to employees.

Step Two: Eliminate the characters:

The offering of four weeks of vacation is offset by the refusal of payment of an annual bonus.

In the sentence above, nominalizations (offering, refusal, payment) and passive voice (is offset) have replaced strong verbs (offers, refuses). Agents have been eliminated (SmithCo, employees).

You can probably picture “SmithCo” and “employees” (even if you have never heard of SmithCo and don’t know the employees in question). It’s much harder to picture “offering” and “refusal.”

Characters are either (1) agents of action or (2) receivers of action. Where possible, make the reader’s job easy and increase the odds that you achieve your writing goal. Choose characters who are agents.

Learn About the Persuasive Writing Engine

Muddled thoughts make for muddled arguments. Stripped-down, agent-less sentences also make for incomprehensible paragraphs. The solution: The Persuasive Writing Engine.