Sage Advice from Kurt Vonnegut

I thought I'd put forth some writerly advice in honor of the late Kurt Vonnegut (this is courtesy of Gayle Brandeis' wonderful blog, which is listed in my links):

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.


I have been guilty of some of this in my own writing, thinking I have been doing something rather bad--now I see that I have been doing rather okay all along! Well, maybe not about the cockroaches....

I had "the magic" happen last night with writing--I sat down with the book, started by doing some line-edits (this always helps me get started, no matter how blocked I am), then began writing--and when I looked up at the clock, three hours had passed in an eyeblink!

As I work on this book, I gain more and more empathy for my parents and am starting to understand how fragile they really were. I no longer have the desire to blame my parents for the poor choices I have made in the past. The one thing I can do is take responsibility for my life today and know that I have the emotional and spiritual tools to make of my life what I want. It may not happen in the exact way I want or on my timetable, but that is the beauty and the surprise of being alive.