Kurt Vonnegut, author of
Slaughterhouse- Five, passed away last month at the age of
84. He will be remembered as one of America’s best-loved
authors.
Kurt Vonnegut's Rules For Writing Short Stories
Posted on Amazon Shorts page by
Daniel Slater.
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.
Book Club Picks
From Bookclub.ca
After Dark
Haruki Murakami
Radiance
Shaena Lambert
A Far Country
Daniel Mason
The Ministry of Special Cases
Nathan Englander
Mental Traps
André Kukla
Heat
Bill Buford
The Custodian of Paradise
Wayne Johnston
Heartstopper
Joy Fielding