How to Contact Authors www.contactauthors.com

Why You May Have Trouble Writing Your Self-help Book: Books are Linear. Life is Not

Article by Carmen Berry, Writing Coach/ Let's Finish Your Book!

Why have you bought and read self-help books in the past? To solve a specific problem, right?

Well, that's the same reason readers will buy and read your book. They can't solve a problem in their lives on their own and they look to an expert (that's you!) to give them new understanding and new skills to fix their problem.

That seems simple enough. If it is that easy, why can't you just whip out a self-help book this afternoon? Let's take a look at how books work.

> Book vs. LifeA book starts on the first page and ends on the last page. In English, we read from left to right, starting at the top of the page and ending with the last word on the right-hand bottom of the page. Language is written and read in a linear way.

Now, let's look at "life". Ponder this present moment. While you are reading this article, all of your senses are automatically attending to noises, smells, sounds and the way your computer mouse feels in your hand. All of this is happening at the same time. Life comes at us from all directions and demands that our brains pick out the important aspects of life so that we aren't overwhelmed.

> What is your challenge as a writer? A book may be linear, but life isn't. Your challenge is to capture your life experience and turn it into a linear progression of words that help your readers solve a problem. You can't fully capture your experience in words, even for one instant. The nature of language demands that you must start somewhere, give an explanation in the middle and eventually coming to the end of your description.

And even if you could re-create the chaos, who'd want to read it? Would your readers benefit from being overwhelmed by all your experiences, impressions, and sensations all at once? Probably not.

Your challenge is to make the pandemonium comprehensible by creating a well-structured book. Sure, you've got good ideas, but you need to lay them out for readers in an understandable, left to right progression. You've got to translate your experience (which is multi-faceted and occurs simultaneously) into a learnable structure (which is linear and regulated by the laws of language).

Your job is to isolate the skills or processes you want to teach and put them into an arrangement that offers techniques, skills, and insights.