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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..