Being smart makes you dumb
Easy Read
“Looks like you suffer from Myopia.” the Optician said
I blinked at her.
“That means your eye is effectively too long. The distance between your cornea and the retina is too far. So when light enters your eye it’s already focused before it reaches the retina which causes blurred vision. You get me?”
“Uh … not really.”
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“Basically it means you’ll have trouble seeing things far away.”
“Ohhhhh, now I get ya.”
Opticians train for an average of three years learning all they can about how your peepers work.
For her this stuff about Myopia is second nature. But she didn’t realise to a normal civvy (like me) … she’s speaking another language.
And that’s the Curse of Knowledge.
She’s smart, but that made her dumb. Dumb to my lack of understanding of what she was on about.
And when you have all this knowledge it can be difficult to communicate it to less-informed people.
The curse is a cognitive bias we all share. And it can be a death sentence for the effectiveness of your work.
See, most people don't know as much as you do.
You’re likely miles ahead of them so it's on you to help them understand.
Especially as a writer.
Because unlike face-to-face interaction, people can’t gauge reactions or ask questions to words on a page.
So it’s good to remember that, at one point you were them, a little bird without the know-how you have today. Channel that less informed version of yourself so your work connects with people and pulls them in. Otherwise they’ll scatter like cats in a hailstorm.
Reading copy laced with elaborate jargon, idioms, and ego-lifting words is worse than the dry heaves.
Dial it back. Get on the reader’s level. Have sympathy for their challenge. Favour understanding over cleverness. They’ll relate to you more that way. And if you’re selling something … they’ll be more likely to buy.
By Ryan Heaney.
