But readers of self-help don’t want to be dumped on by someone else’s pain. They’ve got enough to handle of their own. They don’t want to read what sounds like someone else’s journaling and catharsis-in-progress. That makes them feel overwhelmed. Instead, they want the writer to get to the point, to summarize their past (if they’re going to mention it at all)—not deal it out to them, wound by painful wound.
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