Kurt Vonnegut
Thursday, 12 April 2007 12:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spqrbluesI just heard that Kurt Vonnegut died last night. I am sad.
My first "Secret Santa" gift at the dorm was a Kurt Vonnegut book. Rumour had it he, too, was held back by being unable to pass a university's mandatory swimming test, hence the theme showing up in his novels. I most recently read an essay by him against the Current Administration.
I'd make more insightful commentary, but I am struggling with work deadlines.
I found this quote, the author sliding into the narrative of one of his novels as he writes it (Breakfast of Champions)— I understand the feeling:
Some of them were very very good books.
The usual internet sources are kind enough to provide these further quotes:
One the Administration: "By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas in December."
From Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, eight rules for writing a short story:
Number 6 is the one I live by :)
Number 8, well, goodness, that's just creepy.
My first "Secret Santa" gift at the dorm was a Kurt Vonnegut book. Rumour had it he, too, was held back by being unable to pass a university's mandatory swimming test, hence the theme showing up in his novels. I most recently read an essay by him against the Current Administration.
I'd make more insightful commentary, but I am struggling with work deadlines.
I found this quote, the author sliding into the narrative of one of his novels as he writes it (Breakfast of Champions)— I understand the feeling:
"This is a very bad book you're writing," I said to myself.
"I know," I said.
Some of them were very very good books.
The usual internet sources are kind enough to provide these further quotes:
One the Administration: "By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas in December."
From Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, eight rules for writing a short story:
- Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
- Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
- Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
- Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
- Start as close to the end as possible.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Number 6 is the one I live by :)
Number 8, well, goodness, that's just creepy.
