From: julie@pascal.org   
      
   On Sunday, December 7, 2014 4:03:07 AM UTC-7, William Vetter wrote:   
   > J.Pascal explained on 12/06/2014 :   
   > > On Saturday, December 6, 2014 7:14:32 AM UTC-7, Michelle Bottorff wrote:   
   > >> Will in New Haven  wrote:   
   > >>    
   > >>>> But I had betareaders complain that it was too confusing.  :(   
   > >>>>    
   > >>> It could be. The test for me would be whether it was interesting enough   
   to   
   > >>> put up with the confusion.   
   > >>    
   > >> Alas, it really didn't seem to add enough to be worth it.   
   > >>    
   > >> But in my head, the language still works that way.  What you see in the   
   > >> book is a simplification created during the translation process. :)   
   > >>    
   > >   
   > > I was reading a book from the library.  I don't remember who the author   
   was -    
   > > it could have been Eric Flint - could have been someone else.  For the   
   first    
   > > 20 or so pages, every other sentence had a word underlined and a simpler    
   > > synonym written in the margin. I figure that the point where the   
   marginalia    
   > > ended was the point where the reader gave up.   
   >    
   > You shouldn't assume that this person was a typical reader.  He could    
   > have been an adult learner or EFL student.  They will have such a    
   > problem with most books, except those designed for their situations.   
      
   I would think that assuming the "typical reader" has an extensive working   
   vocabulary similar to, let us just say, those of us *here* is absurd.   
      
   What made this reader atypical is that they were (apparently) looking up the   
   meanings of the words as they went along. Who does that?   
      
   I'm not suggesting that anyone ought to dumb down their vocabulary in science   
   fiction and science fiction does tend to have readers who appreciate a   
   wordsmith who expects them to keep up, at least it seems so to me. But I   
   believe in being honest.  The    
   reason that "how to write a best seller" books advise using a vocabulary   
   appropriate to elementary school students is that you shut out fewer readers   
   that way and thus increase your sales.  The truth is that a "typical reader"   
   doesn't want to be made to    
   feel stupid or be asked to *work* when they sit down to read a book.   
      
   The question if science fiction is naturally a genre that attracts only the   
   smartest among us or if literary science fiction has simply weeded out the   
   unworthy readers and made them unwelcome might be an interesting question for   
   an author to consider.   
      
   And it is up to the author now. It used to be that you had to write for slush   
   readers and editors. Period. Authors have more freedom now to decide who they   
   are writing for.   
      
   -Julie   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)