What You Can Do This Minute To Stop Confusing Your Readers
Post 1 in Our Writing for Artists Series
By Thea Fiore-Bloom, Ph.D.

You’re not crazy if you can’t seem to eke out a 300-word bio or artist’s statement without wanting to call your therapist.
Everyone struggles with writing.
Even professional writers think writing is excruciating. I know I do.
But about 10 years ago I had a head slap moment at my desk. It came to me there were 2 things I needed to stop doing if I wanted to be understood and stay sane as a writer.
What I figured out that day has allowed me to improve, and on rare occasions, enjoy writing.
Let’s see if my personal writing realization and solution can help you as well.
The Big Kahuna of Stumbling Blocks For All Artists Who Write
What’s the biggest problem all writers (especially new or infrequent writers) face?
Writing with clarity.
In my work as a writing coach for artists, I’ve noticed many creatives craft sentences that confuse the heck out of our readers.

4 Ways Artists Confuse Readers When We Write
1. We write sentences that are too long.
2. We write sentences that contain three points instead of one.
3. The 3 points often don’t have a hell of a lot to do with one other.
4. We include words people outside our specialty may not understand. Writing instructors call such words, “jargon.”
What Clogs Up the Clarity in Your Art Writing?
What clogs up clarity in the writing of artists I coach?
The most common problem seems to be, too many ideas in one sentence.
Here’s an example sentence a glass fusing* instructor wrote in their course description for a new workshop.
I randomly selected this sentence from a workshop advertisement I received and changed the medium and specific techniques mentioned, to ensure the artist’s anonymity.
It’s not a bad sentence but just see if you tune out a bit when you read it.
Here goes:
“The problem solving we implement on cabling or combing, the way we use crizzling and how we implement techniques, and of course the designs – both practical and otherworldly – all are informed by our creative thinking.”
Still there?
Or did your brain switch stations for a minute?
Can you see how trying to communicate 4-5 ideas (albeit luscious ones) in a single sentence, is confusing? Not to mention the use of words or concepts a general audience may not understand.
I used to write like this at times before my stress-induced writing epiphany.
So how can you not write in a way that causes static in your readers’ minds?
Forbid yourself two things.
First Thing To Forbid Yourself
1. Deny Yourself Crazy Amounts of Punctuation in a Single Sentence
Stop overusing punctuation marks that allow you to write super long sentences that include 20 ideas instead of one.

Be especially aware of the seductive, deadly duo; the comma and the dash.
Let’s go back and look at the use of the two commas and four dashes in the glass blower’s sentence. I’ve highlighted them for you in red:
“The problem solving we implement on cabling or combing, the way we use crizzling and how we implement techniques, and of course the designs – both practical and otherworldly – all are informed by our creative thinking.”
It’s common for artists and beginning writers to use wagon loads of dashes.
But the comma and dash usually prove fatal for beginning writers when placed in the same sentence.
Why?
Overcrowding.
We overuse punctuation like commas, dashes, and semicolons in a misguided attempt to corral a herd of thought-horses into one sentence stall.
My head slap moment was the minute I finally realized my arguments were confusing because my sentences were too crowded.
So I forbade myself to use commas and dashes for a bit.
This made it easy to stop doing the second thing that was causing my clarity problems.
2nd Thing To Forbid Yourself
2. Deny Yourself Long Sentences (For Now)
When your sentences can’t include a ton of added punctuation, they have no choice but to be short and happy.
When I was in punctuation mark recovery I allowed myself to write as many sentences as necessary. But they had to be short.
Not double-stuffed.
My word count remained the same.
The only difference was, folks finally understood what I was trying to say. It was a miracle.
“A sentence should contain no unnecessary words.” — William F. Strunk.

Writing shorter sentences is not rocket science.
Yet very few academics or non-professional writers do short sentences.
Hemingway was the sultan of short sentences.
Forcing yourself to write short sentences won’t make you Hemingway, but it will foot-bind your brain and get it to learn to write one idea at a time.
Later you can add back in medium-size sentences, and commas and dashes too.
Medium and long sentences with correct punctuation are beautiful things.

Excellent advice! Not an easy task for someone who loves long sentences and commas~
Thanks Sylvia, long sentences and commas come in handy. Only shorten sentences if you feel they are unclear. I love your writing.
I just heard you for the first time thanks I look forward to more
Thanks Linda! And if you have a writing question you can leave it here.
Oh my. You nailed me. Thank you for this clarity about clarity!!
Thanks for taking the time to comment Debra :). Glad you could relate. If it makes you feel any better, I nailed ME too. I was the comma and dash queen, and still am, in my rough drafts. Keep writing! You are doing great.
You described your rewrite as less lyrical. Sometimes we fall in love with a phrase and won’t delete it. We try for hours to build a sentence around it. Finally, we understand that it fits with our art, but not with the writing. I’m there today, so reading your article might be my aha moment. Thanks, Thea.
And thanks for including my painting, Thinking. The title might wake us up, right?
Hi Carolyn,
I agree completely! Yes, we fall in love with a sentence of ours and won’t delete it, even though it is gumming up the clarity of the overall piece. I struggle with this still! It is very common among writers. So much so that when William Faulkner was asked for writing advice he responded; “Murder your darlings.” Meaning get rid of the sentence of ours we love that really isn’t working. Yes I though your “Thinking” might fit in well with the writing process. 🙂 Great art work.
This was such a lovely post. I am the queen of the run on sentence. This will help to stay focused. 🙂 Thank you.
Thanks for taking the time to read the post and to comment on it.;) And I can relate to what you said about the run on sentences. I took the crown in that department. Let me know how shortening up your sentences works for you. xo
Perfectly clear, concise exercises.! Thank you.
Makes me happy you think so. Thanks for reading the piece and letting me know it worked for you!
Yes — brilliant!
I’m honored that you think the post was good. I am a fan of your blog artbizcoach.com, and I always learn something new when I read your work. 🙂 Thanks for taking the time to read and comment.
Simple advice that every writer can use. Great tips. Thanks for the dedication, Thea.
Thanks Kathy, I am glad you think so. That’s wonderful.
This is good stuff here, Thea.
I am guilty too of trying to put 2 or 3 ideas in one long sentence which flows well, but is probably too much. Good advice here to remember. Cheers, Steve
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment and mention the two or three things, thing. When I wrote longer sentences, I didnt stop at 2 or 3 . I was a 4 clause sentence gal, lol. There is great info in your long sentences. Your readers deserve to drink in and understand every drop of what you are saying. Keep up the great writing.
Great article. In the process of trying to formulate my artist statement. Very useful, thankyou.
Hi Wendy, thanks so much for leaving a comment and I am dee-lighted you found the article useful for you artists statement. They are hard to write huh? Deceptively simple. So hard to figure out how to effectively communicate who you are, what you most care about and how you do what you do creatively, in one page. I would be happy to look it over for you when you are done. Best, Thea