Tips from Kurt Vonnegut

Eight rules for writing fiction (http://www.troubling.info/vonnegut.html):

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.

-- Vonnegut, Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons 1999), 9-10.

back to reality...

so i workshopped BLANK CANVAS/LEAVING MY <3 IN SF and it didn't go over very well. and to be truthful, the play wasn't my best, WHICH SUCKS!!! cuz I know that i write better than this. I know it and I'm really disappointed in myself more than any ribbing I can take from anyone else. I really can't make excuses, well I can, but that excuse will be remedied very soon... like in 2 weeks :)

but yeah, play sucked, but you know what, it just made me stronger. and it was a real reality check for me cuz after going from a high with the reading I had in Sac in front of an audience to what happened today... it just makes me want to write more than I ever did before. just a little setback. but one thing's for sure, i'm gonna burn this play and start another one... and another one... and just keep trying to get better and better. i've ALWAYS been a slow starter.