Kurt Vonnegut on Writing Fiction
Posted
Wednesday, January 30, 2008 2:17 PM
by
Romo
I don't really like Kurt Vonnegut that much (a topic about which I can
speak at length, but not right now, because I am at work and have
limited time). Nonetheless, I think he has some good tips for writing
fiction. Read on.
Eight rules for writing fiction:
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6.
Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters,
make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see
what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8.
Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible.
To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding
of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story
themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
-- Vonnegut, Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons 1999), 9-10.