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Kurt Vonnegut on Absolutely Everything You Will Ever Need to Know About Creative Writing in 8 Simple Rules

http://www.vonnegut.com/

Kurt Vonnegut


"All persons living and dead are purely coincidental, and should not be construed. No names have been changed in order to protect the innocent. Angels protect the innocent as a matter of Heavenly routine."

Read Kurt Vonnegut, age 80, Targeting the Assholes, In These Times

Now lend me your ears.
Here is Creative Writing 101:

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 character, 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.

NOTE: 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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Editor's Note: One of the editors here, who shall remain anonymous, sought an alternative for poor dumb bastards like himself who want to write well enough to not bore the life out of their readers but who do not have the money to buy an MFA and may even in their cynical heart of hearts suspect that the whole MFA-thing is a lot of elitist bourgeois sheep herding Capitalist lap dog bullshit.

But why would anyone in their right mind listen to the that editor?

Yet maybe, just maybe, people in their right mind would listen to a former instructor in the MFA program at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, a fella from Indiana traveling the Universe under the name of Kurt Vonnegut.

While the editor admits that Mr. Vonnegut ain't saying MFAs are a lot of elitist bourgeois sheep herding Capitalist lap dog bullshit, he is offering— absolutely free—everything you will ever need to know about how to write without boring the life out of your readers.

Of course, you will still need to spend huge vast oceanic amounts of time actually writing in order to master these rules. But guess what? You'd have to do the same thing even after you purchased an MFA.

Why not save yourself many thousands of American dollars? Hey, why not send a few hundred of those saved American dollars to the Editor , the guy who put you on to the priceless wisdom of Kurt Vonnegut?

Please note: This brilliantly brief list of rules for great creative writing appears in Mr. Vonnegut's book, Bogombo Snuff Box, Uncollected Short Fiction. (We're hoping that, as it's such a short and important excerpt, our asses are covered under Fair Use and that neither the author nor his publisher will sic rabid $300 an hour lawyers on penniless pissants like us. Still, you might want to pray for us. Can't hurt.)

Also Please note: GOD BLESS YOU, MR. VONNEGUT!