Flesch-Kincaid: Threat or Menace?

An interesting post about the Flesh-Kincaid readability scale.

FWIW, I checked a recent short story of mine, and it does quite well according to the Smith Ideal Writing Standard.

Here’s the standard’s ideal results:

No more than 4.25 characters per word.
No more than 5% passive voice
No less than an 80% readability on the Flesch Reading Ease scale.
A Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level of 5 (although on the chart, he lists that as 4-6).

Here are the results for my story “The Show Must Not Go On“:

Characters per word: 4.2
Passive sentences: 1%
Reading Ease: 84.7%
Grade Level: 4.1

Here’s the post that kicked off the discussion: Flesch-Kincaid: Threat or Menace?