Don't Talk Down to Readers

Don’t talk down to readers. They may know as much as you do about your subject, or more. If they don’t, they don’t want to be told how lucky they are to have you tell them all about it. Military techno-thrillers are often packed with acronyms like SOSUS and AIM-9s and Pratt & Whitney J-57s, and even if you don’t know what the hell those things are, you feel you’re being talked to as an equal when you encounter them on the page (and these days, it’s not difficult to look them up). Same goes for nature. And as for technology. . . . 

HELEN MACDONALD