The Elements of Self-Help and Spirituality Writing

In Week 2 of my online class about self-help and spirituality writing, we talked about the elements of self-help and spirituality writing: the unique combination of anecdotes, research, case studies, thought experiments, parables, exercises, discussion sections, and worksheets that authors use to create great books.

If you pick up a stack of your favorite self-help books, you’ll notice that each book uses a different combination of these familiar elements, presented in a different order. In some books, each chapter opens with an attention-grabbing anecdote, then moves into several paragraphs of discussion, then repeats this anecdote + discussion pattern two more times before arriving at the chapter’s conclusion.

In other books, each chapter opens with an exercise that gets readers engaged, then presents some fascinating research explaining why or how the exercise works, then presents a series of case studies illustrating the phenomenon in question.

Although each chapter doesn’t necessarily follow a cookie-cutter design, there is often a consistent blueprint from chapter to chapter. This makes life easier for the author, who knows exactly what sort of material she needs to gather for each chapter, and for the reader, who knows what to expect as she proceeds through the book.

Once you’ve found the ideal chapter blueprint for your self-help or spirituality book, the whole writing process comes unlocked, and in some cases it can almost feel like the book starts writing itself.

If you are writing a self-help or spirituality book, take some time to identify which elements are going to appear in your book, and play with different ways of ordering those elements. Is it better to have exercises at the start of each chapter at the end, or interspersed throughout? Can you make research-heavy sections more entertaining by interweaving them with anecdotes?

Nailing your chapter blueprint makes outlining a breeze, and creates a container where your message can shine.

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