Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Tips on How to Write a Great Story
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 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.
