Today I bring you writing tips attributed to one of America’s most talented and well-known authors—Kurt Vonnegut, who penned works of satire and science fiction such as Slaughterhouse Five. I once had the pleasure of being photographed at my house by his wife Jill Krementz, for a photo book of authors called Black Writers: A Book of Postcards.
Vonnegut passed away last year but these writing tips, which I recently came across, are timeless and so worth sharing. There’s something here for every author or aspiring author, no matter how many books you’ve written or dreamed of writing.
Writing Tips—eight rules for writing 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. 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.
- 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 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.
—Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons 1999).
(I can’t be 100% certain the rules are actually from Vonnegut, as my source is the Internet. But the tips are widely cited and the source mentioned. At any rate, the rules are right on the money regardless of the source.)
2 comments ↓
These are great tips. I’m a little surprised by the last one. Usually you hear don’t give it all away at once. So I’m going to think on that one.
I have that book of postcards with the photos his wife took!
That one was a bit surprising to me, too. Although I do think you have to be careful not to hold back too much, which is a mistake beginning authors often make. Instead of being suspenseful you can frustrate your readers if you hold back too much. It’s all about timing.
Vonnegut’s wife, Jill Krementz, is an accomplished photographer and author herself.
You must log in to post a comment.