Whether you appreciate his style or content, it is hard to deny that Kurt Vonnegut was a master of language—intelligent, creative, and meaningful.
Here is his list of eight rules for writing a short story, from his collection Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction. :
- Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
- Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
- Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
- Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
- Start as close to the end as possible.
- 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.
- 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.
- Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell 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 recommends using The Elements of Style for the technical bits about writing—learn the language. He also notes that the rules within Strunk and White’s classic book are general rules, not hard and fast rules—just like his eight rules. He states that Flannery O’Connor was a great writer, and broke all of his rules except the first one!
Below is one of my favorite videos—part of a lecture given by Vonnegut on the “shape” of stories. If you haven’t seen it, give it a look (4:36).
