
| RepentantAnon #479139 10 months ago |
i had to convert this to jpg in order to upload. the original png file that can be found in the source link was 11 MB large. |
| sargesprinkles #479150 10 months ago |
rule 6, huh? |
| RepentantAnon #479158 10 months ago |
^i do believe you nailed that good sir XD |
| P0ny_brigade #479162 10 months ago |
Kurt Vonnegut; more or less required reading for freshman so they no longer write like they need to cater to 1 critic. |
| Obscure #479183 10 months ago |
Rule 6 is hard. You have to hurt your characters so they can have lows.
Without the low there is no high, no struggle and no story. |
| Anonymous #479189 10 months ago |
Eh...I would tend to agree with some of this, but not necessarily all of it.
You don't have to be sadistic towards characters. We already have enough writers who think that gridmark is good writing; please don't encourage any more (as many would likely misunderstand what is being said). You also left out the most important thing about writing: that it's roughly 30% planning, 20% writing, and 50% editing. The problem with MOST of the fiction on the net today is that the authors do not know how to aggressively self-edit. They finish writing, run a spell checker, and stick their work up somewhere or hand it to other people to start editing. If a writer cannot self-edit, they cannot write. |
| P0ny_brigade #479194 10 months ago |
^ basically it becomes a story by stephenie meyer |
| Anonymous #479199 10 months ago |
See also: "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" by Mark Twain.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/HNS/Indians/offense.html |
| nemryn #479250 10 months ago |
'Avoid cliches like the plague'. Heh. |
| your_waifu #479261 10 months ago |
you're going to be told you need to show and not tell. so learn how to do that. then when you have that down, stop doing it and relearn how to tell because now you're prose is unreadable. and then once that is done you should be able to balance straight exposition and subtlety.
my least favorite of Vonnegut's tips is 8. i do like me suspense and mystery. and it should be noted that these rules work far better for short fiction. if you're writing a novel 4, 5, and 8 usually don't hold much weight. a short story needs to be a singular entity, as tight as you can make it. a novel has way more room to move around if you want. and speaking about editing, when you edit your work it should shrink, not grow. trim off those unnecessary words and sentences. or as I was told, club your babies to death. of course i'm pretty bad at keeping to my own rules sometimes. but that's why i'm a failed, alcoholic amateur and not a cult literary superstar |
| Flutterguy #479264 10 months ago |
But, rule 6 is the easiest of them, and i think the 8 is also the easiest to break and pull it off nicely, everyone loves a good reveal, that feeling of "It all makes sense now" or "yeah, i was right!!" even the "Wow, didn't think of that" is great if the story is good.
But i can see why begginers should avoid it. Well this is just MY opinion, other people can have their own |
| your_waifu #479295 10 months ago |
oh of course. it's art. it's all subjective. (read: does not mean all good. you can break all the rules you want but if it's bad then it's bad. you need to LEARN the rules before you can skillfully break them)
rule six is so easy for me these days. i lovely baby a character for two years in my head and i have no trouble blowing their brains out (or tossing their kid of a bridge, or however you want you ruin their life) |
| your_waifu #479301 10 months ago |
also am i the only one who flat out hates adverbs? laziest thing you can do.
unless it's done right. art is hard. |
| NonAnon #479306 10 months ago |
My Comp 1 (composition) professor in college taught me one thing that has vastly improved my writing ability:
"Am/Is/Are/Was/Were/Be(ing/come)... outside of dialog, they must NOT exist." It forces you to use much more descriptive wording. You'll notice, I did that very thing in this post. |
| NonAnon #479327 10 months ago |
#3 is also good for rpg characters you make. Something I'm trying to teach some of my friends.
#6 Isn't the easiest for a lot of people I know. When they make a character they really like, it's hard to hurt him. For me, I never make a character without promising myself that they WILL die. I'm big on inevitability, so death is a driving issue in a lot I do. |
| Anonymous #479387 10 months ago |
Is it weird that I think, no, I know that my favorite writers break mr. Vonnegut's rules like crazed monkeys with sledgehammers... and write a really sweet novel while doing that? |
| FlarityinstaFav #479511 10 months ago |
I stare at these rules, look back at my puny three pages of Flarity, and just wanna cry.
Why, why must writing non-crap be so hard? |
| RepentantAnon #479519 10 months ago |
^now wait just one second, lemme give you MY personal first rule about writing: like what you're writing! everything else comes second |
| WhiteLycan #479538 10 months ago |
bukken fav'd. |
| Anonymous #479664 10 months ago |
Note that the Vonnegut's rules apply primarily to when you're starting out.
The underlying rule is that you get the *break* the rules... IF you know what the rules are in the first place. And why they're there. Above all, tell a story. |
| Anonymous #480223 10 months ago |
Think outside of the box.
But not outside of this fancy sphere we've made around the box. That's bad. |
| Anonymous #480983 10 months ago |
^^ That's right under rule eight. Good writers can break any rule but rule one. But first you need to be a good writer. |
| Anonymous #480997 10 months ago |
Making Stories That Are Stories And Don't Suck |
| Anonymous #481586 10 months ago |
...I suddenly want to write one where one of them tries to get a glass a water... |
| TheLoneLampman #482758 10 months ago |
Too be fare, they don't fair vary well over their; there to careless with they're word usage.
Writing: A dying art indeed.. |