ASF staffers banter all the time about rules for writing fiction—especially during Tuesday night readers’ meetings, when we’ve got stacks of manuscripts between us as evidence of why those rules stand–or proof that they were made to be well broken.
While my own favorite and quick-to-recall writing rules include Brett Anthony Johnston’s (Corpus Christi: Stories and Naming the World) mention to
And there was something poet Chase Twitchell, wife of Russell Banks, passed on after a reading in upstate New York on July 21, 2008 (it remains important enough for me to recall the date): “Tell the truth. No decoration. Remember death.” There are other pretty notes I’ve tucked away from writers over the years. But my favorite word of advice wasn’t about fiction writing per se. It was about that vehicle of fiction—language. It’s a line Tim O’Brien delivered during a particularly rule-filled and dictionary-scouring discussion, and it goes like this: “A comma is the difference between art and shit.”
While his comment was directed at someone other than me, it sends me to the Chicago Manual plenty often still and forever. And it also comes back to me each time I come across a writer’s “rules” meant specifically for fiction—as, for example, when I stumbled recently onto this list of eight rules for fiction by Kurt Vonnegut:
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. Now 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.
[from Kurt Vonnegut's Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (New York: Putnam, 1999), 9-10.]
(Thanks to reader Alex Moody for the tip-off on this list.)
Likely we’ll be bantering, ASF style, about this list next Tuesday, asking each other if we agree with any or all of these rules, and wanting to know if you, our readers, ascribe to any of them. . . or if there are other rules out there you follow without fail?
Drop us a line. Let us know. We’re interested.
I’m interested in the difference between the Johnston quote “…make them wait” and #8 from Vonnegut, which is more or less “don’t make them wait.”
Overall, I try to keep numbers 1, 6, and 7 in mind. I am now very aware of commas. Thanks, Tim O’Brien.
I like the “Tell the truth. No decoration” philosophy, too. I don’t like decoration. When I revise, I try to take down decorations.
I often wonder if my stories start too slowly, or don’t get enough information out fast enough. I enjoy the “make them wait” strategy, yet there’s a danger in that…if a reader has to wait too much, they’ll decide to fire up the computer and read three hundred Tweets instead. Or, I worry that I’ve spent 4 pages working my way into a story, and I leave those pages at the beginning because the initial discovery process is so enjoyable (and surely a reader would think so). In reality, that’s more of a writing exercise than a story, and that’s not really making someone wait, that’s just being boring.
Going back to Vonnegut’s list, I’d have to say #1 is the idea I always try to keep in my head. When I’m writing I ask myself, over and over, “Why is this interesting? Am I wasting a reader’s time?”
I also like his list because it’s a list, and it seems official.
Alex, a fine catch–the difference between Johnston’s “make them wait” and Vonnegut’s “don’t make them wait.”
Let the experimenting between the two keep us writing for years. . .
I pass out Vonnegut’s rules to every writing class I teach. I find myself referencing it constantly. Especially 3, 5, 6, and 8. That list makes me happy.
Often I’ll reference first paragraphs and first pages of great short works. I got that from Tom Grimes.
And I agree with Tim. I usually do. Cormac McCarthy also taught me a lot about commas.
And what is it that McCarthy teaches you about commas, Chris?