Chapter 2 Readability Stats

As I posted for Chapter 1 here are the Chapter 2 readability stats taken from Word as recommended by Jim Smith, I pretty much kept the Flesch score above the target suggested by Jim Smith of 80.  Also I pick up pace a bit in the action sequences - so I'm fairly pleased with that aspect of it.

I followed the Ladies of the Kensington Gore Croquet Club because I had to give the gentleman Rankers time to get from India to Algeria where I wanted them for their next scene. I am conscious though of the point made by some people that the book says it is about the Gentleman Rankers and I tend to give more time to the KGCC. I'll confess that this is at least partially because I enjoy writing the women. I shall have to see how it goes and evaluate it more when I get to the end of the first draft. (About the end of 2013 at this rate).

For Wikipedia on readability tests see wiki article on readability

Scene / segment	Version	Words	words per sentence	characters per word	Flesch	Flesch / Kincaid	Passives
1.1	V1.0	1,201	11	4.2	80.8	4.6	0.0%
1.2	V1.0	1,244	10.9	4.2	81.6	4.5	0.0%
2	V1.0	1,575	11.3	4.3	78.1	5.1	1.0%
3.1	V1.0	1,317	9.9	4.3	81.0	4.3	0.0%
3.2	V1.0	1,672	11.3	4.2	81.1	4.7	3.0%
3.3	V1.0	1,042	9.7	4.2	85.8	3.7	1.0%
3.4	V1.0	1,566	12.0	4.2	80.1	5.0	1.0%
3.5	V1.0	1,782	11.9	4.2	82.4	4.7	4.0%
3.6	V1.0	1,399	10.9	4.1	81.5	4.5	2.0%
		12,798

Readability meaures

Now I've posted all the first draft of Chapter 1, I thought I'd share a useful tip from this book by Jim Smith. It is one of the best practical guides I have seen.

One of the things it suggests is to keep track of readability statistics. These can be calculated by, for example, Microsoft Word.

Look at the table below. The Flesch score is a measure of how hard a piece of text is to read. Higher is better. The Fleach - Kincaid measure is an indicator of American school grade at which students can be expected to follow the text. I really only use the former. Smith recommends staying higher than 80. This tends to give a bit of a 'cat sat on the mat' feel to a story. It conflicts with those who tell us to write elegant sentences that involve semi-colons and such.  I have decided to stick with Smith's advice at least until I have a first draft. Although you will see that the scenes in the first chapter don't always succeed in this.

Probably more importantly, Smith recommends a pacing of the rhythm of the story.  You will see how the two halves of Scenes 3 and 4 pick up pace as they work towards the end of the scene.Also the final scene picks up pace and the start was with a bit of a bang.  I was quietly pleased with myselffor those bits.

Scene	Version	Words	words per sentence	characters per word	Flesch	Flesch / Kincaid	Passives sentences
1	1.3	517	8.0	4.2	85.5	3.3	3.0%
2	1.0	803	10.6	4.4	79.1	4.7	1.0%
3.1	1.0	1,526	nc	nc	73.6	5.6	7.0%
3.2	1.0	1,222	nc	nc	80.4	4.7	4.0%
4.1	1.0	1,431	nc	nc	71.4	7.1	4.0%
4.2	1.0	1,177	11.0	4.2	81.7	4.5	1.0%
5	1.0	1,464	15.7	4.4	76.0	5.2	2.0%
6	1.0	1,223	nc	nc	75.8	6.0	3.0%
7	1.0	1,362	nc	nc	79.7	4.7	0.0%
8	1.0	1,201	8.7	4.1	85.0	3.5	5.0%

nc = not calculated