by Writing Workshops Staff
A month ago
As craft nerds here at Writing Workshops, we love writing advice and we love Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 basics of Creative Writing. These come from the preface to his story collection Bagombo Snuff Box:
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Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
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Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
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Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
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Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
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Start as close to the end as possible.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Vonnegut said the greatest American short story writer of his generation was Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964). He said she broke every one of his rules but the first. Great writers tend to do that. And all great writers had to start somewhere. If you’re thinking about joining a community of writers, check out our classes (In-Person & Online) in Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction, and Screenwriting via the button below.
