Turn Diary Entries into Blog Posts.
What is venting, and what is engaging reading?
I know a lot of amazing writers who come to me with the same issue.
They want to write successful blog posts…but their blog posts are overly personal. They’re more like diary entries than blog posts.
The topics are universal — Life isn’t fair, society isn’t fair, I have been hurt, and I am trying to heal.
There is a lot of venting. A lot of pain. A lot of…stuff people don’t particularly want to read for long periods of time.
Let’s be honest — Comforting someone is work. And if you’re reading a post where you constantly feel like “I must comfort this person” then that is not reading. That is emotional labor. If you don’t know the person, it’s almost harder to read about their pain without feeling…a little strange.
But personal narratives are powerful, right? So what gives? What is missing? What turns a diary entry…into something that is useful for people to read?
A Sense of Being “Over” It — You’re Slightly Ahead of Your Reader
If you’re writing about, say, trauma, which I write about often — You have to write about something that you’re just a little bit ahead of.