Writing for the literacy-challenged

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Thoughts on Audiobooks?

July Flash Fiction Submissions Posted

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Karen Gray

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I know I harp on about my target audience a lot, but I wonder if anyone other than me gives consideration to this group of people? It's a MASSIVE chunk of the population and they are absolutely and shamefully overlooked.

I consider myself a former member of this group so I know how challenging the find it to get what they want out of a book and more often than not feel like they have to just stick to YA, because it is easier for them to follow the story. Yet often YA just doesn't hold the depth of atmosphere that Adults are looking for. This leads to an eventual loss of interest and lack of reading which only prolongs the problem.

This is why I decided to write my book in a YA style but for adults - not teens, though teens could probably read the first book just fine, the later books deal with a lot of issues best left to adults.

I have done a few things that would be, perhaps frowned upon in the writing of my first book, the intro and really for the challenged reader, the one they have to find easiest to understand. I have used colloquialism a fair whack of the time, I also at times use cliche and telling. All pretty big no nos as far as most books go, however, they are at specific points and are only used this often in book 1, far less in book 2, hardly at all in book 3 etc etc

In theory, the challenged reader is not only reading my books, they are learning to increase their literary skills as they go.

Why do some readers find reading challenging? It's a daunting question, because there are so many answers, but if you boil it right down to it's simplest form - challenged readers are challenged readers because of lack of understanding for how those individuals learn and as a result, poor tuition.

The way I like to describe the issue is that the average person has a linear mind. You look forward and work toward that goal. A to B in a straight line.

A challenged reader more often than not will be a sideways thinker. They cannot get from A to B by walking in a straight line. Some unseen force is in the way, so they have to find another way to get to the same goal. Now that could be by going around the side, or using a mirror, to see it from a different angle, or any number of things. But what is pretty uniform in sideways thinkers is that they are visuo-physical learners. They need to see physical cues to understand the text.

One way of doing this is using cliche. Cliches by definition are over used, EVERYONE knows what they mean, so they provide the sideways thinker with a momentary snapshot of a physical aspect of a situation that they already understand in the setting that they are trying to understand... Following me so far?

"Telling" at times is also needed if there is a really very complex scene, just to help give the challenged reader a few little obvious cues and help them keep with the pace of the story telling. Similarly dialogue tags can be quite important at times of complex scenes or when more than two people are speaking in a conversation.

The aim here is to make the text easy to understand from the outset, and gradually reduce the aids so that the challenged reader learns the skill of more complex reading as they progress through the series, without even realising that they are in fact learning, while at the same time keeping it readable for the general readership. Pretty big task that, but as a sideways thinker and previously challenged reader myself, how can I not try and make things easier for people who are struggling like I used to.

The thing people forget is that these people are often labeled as stupid or they are told that they have poor grades because they don't try hard enough. This is just not the case. Sideways thinkers are no less intelligent than anyone else, in fact at times they have proven more intelligent. It is the learning method and understanding mechanisms that differ and it is these that we should be addressing. There are countless other little tools and aids I use - like making sure the words are less likely to jumble for dyslexic and dyspraxic readers by making sure that there are not too many "swapable" letters too close together (b and d for example) but it would take ooooh so long to list them all, so I won't.

I would like to know other Litopian's thoughts on this issue. It's really important to me, though won't concern too many folk I'd assume, but then again, how many of us have actually taken a moment to think about it? I'll bet hardly any... until now xx

Thanks for listening folks
 
A few random thoughts on the issues that you raise - clichés are unavoidable, and are often the best way to describe something to reader, whatever their level of literacy. All of life is one big cliché - a fact that rather depressed me when I learned that all of the well-known sayings were true in some way, even if they sometimes contradicted one another, such as 'many hands make light work' and 'too many cooks spoil the broth.'

J.K. Rowling said: 'If you don't like to read, you haven't found the right book.' I agree with her, for I once taught adult literacy skills to an ex-convict. He'd spent more time in prison than out. I'm not making excuses for him, but he was functionally illiterate, something that's very common among prison inmates. It's reckoned that more than 75% of them cannot read, write or count to the level of an 11-year-old. This man had been diagnosed as autistic, and it was difficult to find books with a subject that he didn't consider uninteresting or too juvenile for him. His autism manifested itself in a way that was useful to us both, for he was obsessed with certain subjects, including the history of the Wild West, which he'd learnt primarily through Hollywood movies. We wound up reading a lot of Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour together.

The poor literacy and numeracy levels of people in the U.K. is a seldom-discussed secret. Some 20% of the population are illiterate, while a staggering 33% can't add up two three figure numbers without using a calculator. When I worked as a librarian, we had a mantra that 'it didn't matter what they're reading, just as long as they are reading.' I had a rather snooty attitude at the time towards all of the Mills & Boon romances that some readers were devoted to, but a colleague suggested that I try reading some of Georgette Heyer's novels. I was pleasantly surprised at how witty and gripping they were; Stephen Fry is a big fan of hers.

The rise of Y.A. novels is heartening, and there have been several authors who have encouraged adult readers to return to spending a few hours enjoying fictional stories again. Just because a novel features a boy wizard, a young girl with a cat daemon or an adolescent woman with a bow in a dystopian nation doesn't make them any less of a story. It's easily forgotten that classic books of the past, such as 'Alice In Wonderland', 'Great Expectations', 'The Count of Monte Cristo' and 'Kidnapped' appealed to young readers.

It's said that one of the ways to happiness and health is to replace bad habits with good habits. Reading is a great habit, which should be encouraged by whatever means possible.

 
It seems I've always written to the highest audience I could reach, and with sentences sometimes in excess of six or eight lines long, and use of stupid words like sobriquet, am probably one of the less literacy-challenged-friendly writers lounging here (except for when Marc Joan pulls out his Latin). I want to see if I'm a match for the best-qualified anthropologists, physicists, linguists, medieval historians, etc. Probably no, right? In any event, that's what I mean when I say I'm writing "for that one guy."

You could say that with the flavor and heavy use of Scottish-specific themes, terms, colloquialisms, and Gaelic, your target audience is 'literacy-challenged Scottish nationals with a love for fantasy fiction' — I'm not sure a literacy-challenged Yank could handle it. It takes all the literary adroitness I can muster to puzzle it out, especially when without the help of Google.

But if I had to name my target audience... it would be something like "fantasy fiction readers with a preference for Victorian literary style, and an interest in folklore, medieval world history, and quantum physics."

I think our target audiences should band together, Karen. Combined, they'd probably row a mean canoe.
 
It seems I've always written to the highest audience I could reach, and with sentences sometimes in excess of six or eight lines long, and use of stupid words like sobriquet, am probably one of the less literacy-challenged-friendly writers lounging here (except for when Marc Joan pulls out his Latin). I want to see if I'm a match for the best-qualified anthropologists, physicists, linguists, medieval historians, etc. Probably no, right? In any event, that's what I mean when I say I'm writing "for that one guy."

You could say that with the flavor and heavy use of Scottish-specific themes, terms, colloquialisms, and Gaelic, your target audience is 'literacy-challenged Scottish nationals with a love for fantasy fiction' — I'm not sure a literacy-challenged Yank could handle it. It takes all the literary adroitness I can muster to puzzle it out, especially when without the help of Google.

But if I had to name my target audience... it would be something like "fantasy fiction readers with a preference for Victorian literary style, and an interest in folklore, medieval world history, and quantum physics."

I think our target audiences should band together, Karen. Combined, they'd probably row a mean canoe.
They would you know! Hehe! That's a fabby idea ;) Perhaps I'm teaching stateside by immersion, aye? Get you all Scottified with series 1 and then jump Stateside in series 2 ;)
 
It's interesting. Every school has or should have a SENCO, Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator, and that is the person who is trained to look after those student who require a different approach to teaching.

If you are writing with the aim of encouraging 'literacy - challanged' adults, as you refer to them, then it might need to be backed up with expert knowledge and understanding. Whilst you may feel you were 'one of them', maybe formalising this would add value to your assertion (i.e that the books are given the stamp of approval by some sort of body that deals with your target). Also it is just of note that their interest might be of a different genre too.

I have to say though, when I started reading your first 3 chapters I thought the level of reading was of a very high standard. I needed to put on a different literary hat and change my reading mode to COMPLEX :D. Plus I had to read it more than once to digest it and get into it. I liked it once I got into the first chapter but it did take me a while to absorb it. So I must be really challenged! But if you get the readership you are after then I am only an anomaly.
 
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It's interesting. Every school has or should have a SENCO, Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator, and that is the person who is trained to look after those student who require a different approach to teaching.

If you are writing with the aim of encouraging 'literacy - challanged' adults, as you refer to them, then it might need to be backed up with expert knowledge and understanding. Whilst you may feel you were 'one of them', maybe formalising this would add value to your assertion (i.e that the books are given the stamp of approval by some sort of body that deals with your target). Also it is just of note that their interest might be of a different genre too.

I have to say though, when I started reading your first 3 chapters I thought the level of reading was of a very high standard. I needed to put on a different literary hat and change my reading mode to COMPLEX :D. Plus I had to read it more than once to digest it and get into it. I liked it once I got into the first chapter but it did take me a while to absorb it. So I must be really challenged! But if you get the readership you are after then I am only an anomaly.

I don't know why, but it seems the dyslexic, and "challenged readers" that I do have, just seem to get the book instantly. I'm not 100% sure exactly why this is. I know there is a selection of people can't get their heads around the animals, whereas my target audience (so far at least) have lapped them up and demanded more :)
 
I don't know why, but it seems the dyslexic, and "challenged readers" that I do have, just seem to get the book instantly. I'm not 100% sure exactly why this is. I know there is a selection of people can't get their heads around the animals, whereas my target audience (so far at least) have lapped them up and demanded more :)

You can approach a sponsor and request a special project be made to supply your market need with your books and collate data to see if your assertion is more than anecdotal.

I only mention this because that is the approach I would take if I were in your shoes. For example, encouraging kids to take up science, technology, engineering and Maths is an ongoing challenge. On my maternity leave, I had the opportunity of time (before my first baby came into the world), and came up with a project.

Top Careers in Science was born. And I began creating a trump-style card game with over 30 career cards. I had no experience, no money, no skills but just like you had the passion and love to make something happen.

After getting over a few fears; cold calling, sharing idea with others, becoming an employer, leading a team and seeing a project to completion, this was born:

tcis_preview_airline-pilot.jpg tcie_preview_aerospace-eng.jpg tcie_preview_electronics-eng.jpg tcie_preview_mechanical-eng.jpg

I share this with you because it is more powerful to see it visually what us individuals on our own can actually do with all that is out there. And there are lots of support for us to help others.
 

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You can approach a sponsor and request a special project be made to supply your market need with your books and collate data to see if your assertion is more than anecdotal.

I only mention this because that is the approach I would take if I were in your shoes. For example, encouraging kids to take up science, technology, engineering and Maths is an ongoing challenge. On my maternity leave, I had the opportunity of time (before my first baby came into the world), and came up with a project.

Top Careers in Science was born. And I began creating a trump-style card game with over 30 career cards. I had no experience, no money, no skills but just like you had the passion and love to make something happen.

After getting over a few fears; cold calling, sharing idea with others, becoming an employer, leading a team and seeing a project to completion, this was born:

View attachment 328 View attachment 324 View attachment 325 View attachment 326

I share this with you because it is more powerful to see it visually what us individuals on our own can actually do with all that is out there. And there are lots of support for us to help others.
WOW @Emurelda ! That's just one huge big pile of awesome right there!
See if I can get half as far with this as you have with Elemons and Top Careers in Science, I'll be one happy Karen.
 
WOW @Emurelda ! That's just one huge big pile of awesome right there!
See if I can get half as far with this as you have with Elemons and Top Careers in Science, I'll be one happy Karen.

You are further ahead than you think. In fact I keep thinking if only I could near the 100k word mark lol!! Believe me you are much farther there.

Especially with your first book. It's ready.

Here let me show you what I would do....

Beginning here: British Dyslexia Association

Give them a call - find out some statistics from them directly, tell them about your story, your work, and your idea.
Work out a funding total you need to supply say 100 individuals or however many make up a respectable research data.
Create a simple proposal with all the information. Make it personal and tell them your story too.
Contact local corporations (conglomerates mainly best suited as they have funds to help you) and keep trying until you meet your target

And it will work. Don't let doubt get in the way. It's just a matter of time and work. I got a 'yes' after 9 'no's. Be tenacious and persevere.
 
You are further ahead than you think. In fact I keep thinking if only I could near the 100k word mark lol!! Believe me you are much farther there.

Especially with your first book. It's ready.

Here let me show you what I would do....

Beginning here: British Dyslexia Association

Give them a call - find out some statistics from them directly, tell them about your story, your work, and your idea.
Work out a funding total you need to supply say 100 individuals or however many make up a respectable research data.
Create a simple proposal with all the information. Make it personal and tell them your story too.
Contact local corporations (conglomerates mainly best suited as they have funds to help you) and keep trying until you meet your target

And it will work. Don't let doubt get in the way. It's just a matter of time and work. I got a 'yes' after 9 'no's. Be tenacious and persevere.
Litopia needs "OMG" and "LOVE" and "HUG" Buttons
 
I will be very interested to see how you treat Yanks in series 2...
It's different depending on state. I'm doing it like they all work only per state and it's almost like walking through different time periods because they are all at different levels of development ;)
 
It's different depending on state. I'm doing it like they all work only per state and it's almost like walking through different time periods because they are all at different levels of development ;)
Do they do this thing where they make their kids fight to the death? Cuz that would be really cool, too.
 
My husband is dyslexic. He didn't start reading for fun until high school. Even now he prefers audiobooks to printed books. I will ask him his opinions on this when he gets home.

Whenever I read my stuff to him, he says he "doesn't understand it" and it's "too smart" for him. I tell him that the fault, then, is mine, for being too oblique and making the reader work for the meaning. The day he says he "gets" my work is the day I'll be publishable, I think.

Tangentially, because I'm in a sickness-induced haze, obliqueness is why I hate post-modernism.

EDIT: My husband is actually left-brain brilliant.
 
Do they do this thing where they make their kids fight to the death? Cuz that would be really cool, too.
What you mean like in Hunger Games? No.

In some states there are very little abilities and more "tech" In other states, there are more abilities (like the current series) And in some areas the "Abilities" take the form of animal traits :p I'll say no more right now but it's fascinating to me and I'm the damn author! ;)
 
My husband is dyslexic. He didn't start reading for fun until high school. Even now he prefers audiobooks to printed books. I will ask him his opinions on this when he gets home.

Whenever I read my stuff to him, he says he "doesn't understand it" and it's "too smart" for him. I tell him that the fault, then, is mine, for being too oblique and making the reader work for the meaning. The day he says he "gets" my work is the day I'll be publishable, I think.

Tangentially, because I'm in a sickness-induced haze, obliqueness is why I hate post-modernism.

EDIT: My husband is actually left-brain brilliant.
I hear that a lot about audio (another reason I'm pushing the audio) it would be interesting to see what he thought. I had feedback from an avid fantasy reader (70yrs old) the other day. He says I now have a time limit because he has added the entire series to his bucket list o_O
 
I hear that a lot about audio (another reason I'm pushing the audio) it would be interesting to see what he thought. I had feedback from an avid fantasy reader (70yrs old) the other day. He says I now have a time limit because he has added the entire series to his bucket list o_O
That's neat. No pressure.
 
What you mean like in Hunger Games? No.

In some states there are very little abilities and more "tech" In other states, there are more abilities (like the current series) And in some areas the "Abilities" take the form of animal traits :p I'll say no more right now but it's fascinating to me and I'm the damn author! ;)
See, that's what I was thinking of. Okay... maybe like a talking penguin then. I'm full of good ideas today.

But I think that will be neat to see. Also the ruins of particularly well-built iconic buildings, and such. It's always the Sears Tower, or something, but really it would probably be more like the Field Museum...
field-museum.jpg
 
My husband is dyslexic. He didn't start reading for fun until high school. Even now he prefers audiobooks to printed books. I will ask him his opinions on this when he gets home.

Whenever I read my stuff to him, he says he "doesn't understand it" and it's "too smart" for him. I tell him that the fault, then, is mine, for being too oblique and making the reader work for the meaning. The day he says he "gets" my work is the day I'll be publishable, I think.

Tangentially, because I'm in a sickness-induced haze, obliqueness is why I hate post-modernism.

EDIT: My husband is actually left-brain brilliant.
Sorry to hear you are poorly, and hope your husband is applying his left-brain brilliance to looking after you. Off-topic, I am fascinated by the brain lateralisation phenomenon & have written a short story based on it. Hope to present it to the Houses one day...Even further off topic, anyone seen the builders yet?
 
See, that's what I was thinking of. Okay... maybe like a talking penguin then. I'm full of good ideas today.

But I think that will be neat to see. Also the ruins of particularly well-built iconic buildings, and such. It's always the Sears Tower, or something, but really it would probably be more like the Field Museum...
View attachment 336
Now you're getting it ;) Teehee... just 2.5 books to write till we're there :p
 
Sorry to hear you are poorly, and hope your husband is applying his left-brain brilliance to looking after you. Off-topic, I am fascinated by the brain lateralisation phenomenon & have written a short story based on it. Hope to present it to the Houses one day...Even further off topic, anyone seen the builders yet?
OMG I totally missed that!! :eek:

Hope you feel better soon @Meerkat xx
 
My other half is dyslexic too, he prefers reading autobiographies to fiction books. He also has a problem reading black print on white paper, the words blur and mess up for him, leaving him with headaches. He's much more of a visual learner, preferring to watch movies than read books, to be shown rather than told.

I know so many adults that haven't read a book since leaving school, and with the literature we get given at school I can't really blame them. For us literary types, Shakespeare and the like is no bother and a pleasure to read. To others, it's boring, confusing and irrelevant. A good friend of mine was one of these, until a work colleague recommended Terry Pratchett to her and she hasn't looked back, making it her mission to read all the discworld books. Since then, she's made it through the Chronicles of Narnia, the Wizard of Oz series, as much Roald Dahl as she can get, plus much more. All this from someone who 'doesn't like reading'.
It's a case of finding a book interesting and easy to read, not an easy mix to get right.
 
My other half is dyslexic too, he prefers reading autobiographies to fiction books. He also has a problem reading black print on white paper, the words blur and mess up for him, leaving him with headaches. He's much more of a visual learner, preferring to watch movies than read books, to be shown rather than told.

I know so many adults that haven't read a book since leaving school, and with the literature we get given at school I can't really blame them. For us literary types, Shakespeare and the like is no bother and a pleasure to read. To others, it's boring, confusing and irrelevant. A good friend of mine was one of these, until a work colleague recommended Terry Pratchett to her and she hasn't looked back, making it her mission to read all the discworld books. Since then, she's made it through the Chronicles of Narnia, the Wizard of Oz series, as much Roald Dahl as she can get, plus much more. All this from someone who 'doesn't like reading'.
It's a case of finding a book interesting and easy to read, not an easy mix to get right.
Thing is as well, once that hurdle is passed it's just a case of keeping the interest until the mind conditions itself to the job. Then more complex fiction becomes much easier :)
 
My other half is dyslexic too, he prefers reading autobiographies to fiction books. He also has a problem reading black print on white paper, the words blur and mess up for him, leaving him with headaches. He's much more of a visual learner, preferring to watch movies than read books, to be shown rather than told.

I know so many adults that haven't read a book since leaving school, and with the literature we get given at school I can't really blame them. For us literary types, Shakespeare and the like is no bother and a pleasure to read. To others, it's boring, confusing and irrelevant. A good friend of mine was one of these, until a work colleague recommended Terry Pratchett to her and she hasn't looked back, making it her mission to read all the discworld books. Since then, she's made it through the Chronicles of Narnia, the Wizard of Oz series, as much Roald Dahl as she can get, plus much more. All this from someone who 'doesn't like reading'.
It's a case of finding a book interesting and easy to read, not an easy mix to get right.
Yes! I think we need to show kids that reading can be fun too. Give them a choice between genres and assign a genre fiction book. Most of the books we read in school weren't fun for me and, had I not already been exposed to the fiction, I probably would have given it up too!
 
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Thoughts on Audiobooks?

July Flash Fiction Submissions Posted

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