Why Self-Help Tends to Be Badly Written

I like bashing self-help. It’s fun. It’s like bashing a piñata stuffed with rich entitled man babies. It’s also easy because so much self-help is horribly bad. And I’m not talking about the advice itself — which may or may not suck. I’m talking about the quality of the writing. Unlike fiction, which needs to be well written for anyone to read it, there’s almost zero incentive for self-help writers to focus on writing quality. Thus, self-help is rarely written in an engaging, compelling, original, or skillful way. Just compare it with other genres. I’ve opened up plenty of novels that have grabbed me by the lapel and thrust me into a captivating read. I’ve also read poems that have made my jaw drop and made my eyebrows do somersaults above my reading glasses. I’ve read personal essays that have moved me deeply — deeper than an electric whisk rammed down my throat. And even popular science books have taken me on wild fascinating rides. So in plenty of genres, you’ll find true wordsmithing art — writing that’s so great that it stands out like a unicorn among donkeys. <a href="https://medium.com/writing-cooperative/why-self-help-tends-to-be-badly-written-9f6ac5789ca4">Read More</a>