Thursday, April 12, 2007

Kurt Vonnegut 1922-2007

image from vonnegut.com

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3 comments:

Unknown said...

Like many satirists he wrote about the world from an outsider's perspective.
His appearance in Back To School is hilarious, as in Slaughterhouse Five he was as much a character in his own life as he was an author.

Jerrster said...

a great talent that I loved reading...Hi HO!

Anonymous said...

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. -- Kurt Vonnegut