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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32660
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32660
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

You can't. 13 year old boys don't care about pocket squares. Period. End of story.

There is a vast overemphasis in the writing community on how things are written. The emphasis should be on what things are written. Most communication project do not fail because of how things are said but because of what things are said.

The core of the writer's craft is to figure out what the reader is interested in reading about. Figuring out the best way to say that thing to the reader is important too, but it is icing on the cake. The reader will plow through less than perfect prose to get to a subject they care about. But there is no perfection of prose that will make the reader care about a subject they don't care about.

The question you should be asking, therefore, is "How can I make a 13 year old boy care about pocket squares." The answer is probably that there is no way on God's green Earth to make a 13 year old boy care about pocket squares. But if there is one, it is saying something different that will catch their attention, not dumbing down the prose to make the sentences simpler.

A really great writer might make a 13 year old care about pocket squares, but it would be by what they said about them, not how they said it.

Original score: 1