Why don’t you take advantage of e-mail technology? Instead of publishing
a single response to a letter you received (probably via e-mail!), why don’t you
send a response directly to the person with the problem? Then wait for the advice-seeker
to respond, and publish the whole back-and-forth for your readers. That way we
wouldn’t be left wondering how things turned out. For example, I’m sure everyone
wants to know if Giddy Schoolgirl slept with her TA. If you published chat-style
threads instead of Q&A, we would know!You could revolutionize the whole advice-column
genre! At the very least, consider publishing follow-up letters from the people
you give advice to.
The Hole Story
Advice columnists don’t get many follow-up letters, THS. The dirty little
secret of all advice columns–from Ann Landers’ to Miss Manners’ to mine–is
this: Weeks can pass in the time it takes us to get a...