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I was hanging out with my good friend Kurt Vonnegut the other day. Kurt is the author of Slaughterhouse Five. Here's what he had to say about writing.
Greg: So, Kurt, do you have any rules or guidelines we writers should follow?
Kurt: Here is Creative Writing 101:
Greg: Oh goody! Fire away.
Kurt: 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 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.
Greg - Thanks, Kurt. Anything else?
Kurt: Yes. 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.
Greg: Good ol' Flannery. Any advice on dealing with a bad review?
Kurt: Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
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