Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Rules for Writing Fiction – Pt 2

Welcome back to Firsts in Fiction! This is the exciting conclusion of last week’s episode discussing the 8 rules for writing fiction from Kurt Vonnegut.

Andrew Panebianco joined to talk about Vonnegut’s rules.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

The popular example of this is Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. He cut the first two chapters from the story, and most critics regard it as one of his finest openings. If you recall our episodes on first lines and first pages, you’ll remember how we encouraged you to open with some conflict. The technical term for this strategy is “en media res,” and it’s a tried-and-true strategy. However, it’s not completely necessary.

When you look at your opening, do you have a ton of superfluous information? A bunch of unneeded exposition? We usually do, especially for us pantsters. We start writing to discover where we’re going, and the first three chapters end up becoming little more than blind authors poking around in the dark until they find a wall to follow. Trim out the aimless wandering in the dark, and get us 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.

I love this rule. It’s perfect for pantsters. Whenever I find my stories lulling, I throw another obstacle between my characters and their desires. I make bad things happen to them, even though I love them. The magic of this is that it helps us understand how our characters react to adverse situations, and we get to see “what they’re made of.” For example, imagine you’re writing about two writers who start a podcast about writing, and as they’re recording, the dogs next door start barking. And they keep barking. All your characters want is a nice, clean recording, but these dogs are ruining it all. See that? Conflict.

Try to avoid making this too obvious, though. Don’t throw in things that aren’t related to the story. If you’re writing a chick-lit romance, try to avoid random alien abductions (same for westerns or Amish fiction). Such blatant, unrelated conflict comes across as cheesy and unbelievable. That said, if you do feel like your sadism has compromised the believability of your storyline, make sure you go through and foreshadow it so it makes sense, and it feels like you’ve been working toward the aliens the whole time (read Stephen King’s Under the Dome. I’m pretty sure he does this. A lot.)

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.

This rule brings us back to Stephen King’s idea of the ideal reader. If you write a book to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one. Find a person who embodies your target audience, and think about them as you write. Ask yourself, “What would Bob think about this? How would Sally like that?” If Bob and Sally are in your target audience, keep them in mind. Show them your stuff. Let them be an alpha reader or a beta reader. If they don’t like something, they’ll let you know.

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.

Here’s the thing: we don’t trust people who don’t tell us things. Imagine someone who has information you need, but they refuse to tell you. You don’t like them, do you? They frustrate you, and you may want to punch them a little bit. Why then do writers think it’s okay to deliberately withhold information from their readers? “They’ll love this! I’ll tease them! Everyone loves being teased. Everyone loves having a carrot dangled in front of their face.”

Protip: Readers are not Charlie Brown. They buy books to get information. If writers keep teasing them, putting a football out for them to kick, then pulling it away when their foot is about to make contact, they won’t love them for that. Instead, they’ll get mad, and maybe press charges for pain and suffering and criminal teasing.

I’m a huge fan of suspense and tension and mystery, but not at the expense of deliberately withholding information from the reader. I think suspense comes from the information you give your readers. I visit this idea in an old post called Mystery v. Murky. It’s worth a read.

The best mysteries come from an abundance of information, not a dearth of it. Readers love knowing, love guessing what might come next. Don’t be a jerk and hold back information. If your characters know it, the readers should know it. Avoid ending scenes with the cliche, “Bob told Sally his plan.” If Bob tells it to Sandy, we should hear it. Or the (REALLY) offensive information-witholding abuse of “She refused to think of it.” Mularky. Shennanigans. She thought of it, so we should know.

The more information a reader has, the more they want to read. The less they have, the more they want to put the book down.