I have great respect for Mr. Vonnegut, but only because I read Slaughterhouse-Five and liked it. After SH-5 I ventured into the pages of Breakfast of Champions and was not altogether pleased. Maybe my high school brain didn' t get it (I've been discovering that lately...my high school brain was kind of lame in the broken sense of the word). But I also couldn't get into Timequake....so maybe there's a trend there. I guess I should read more and make a more informed decision. But none of this matters because what I'm really trying to say is that Vonnegut has some interesting things to say to writers (and to readers if they care to look at things backwards).
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. No 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.
The greatest American short story writer of my generation was Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964). She broke practically every one of my rules but the first. Great writers tend to do that.
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