I read this thread, then figured I wouldn’t post, all was being well-said here. Took down and looked at a plastic fish I have right here near, a little treasure, that Vonnegut generously signed for me a great while back. Scratchy signature on the side, “Oh well, that wasn’t so good…” and then signed it again. It was backstage, after a lecture, and I had a message to give him from another writer…and so, was lucky enough to get to thank him for opening my mind as a teenager with his writing. He was gracious, am sure he just heard that same thing over and over, as deserved.
Now, just took a walk to the pond across the street, and tears came. Sadness, over Vonnegut’s passing, but a greater reason, really: gratitude. Like so many here, I read his work as a younger teen; found “Breakfast of Champions” at the college library where my dad taught. I had no idea who Vonnegut was, but that zippy 70’s Loud cover caught my eye. Read it, wow, then read everything else. Seeing how so many others here read Vonnegut on the young side, it’s remarkable that his style was accessible to people whose minds were ripe for expanding. Anti-establishment and stasis and ignorance, with humor and fantasy, simple generousity; you could stand there eating what appeared to be a literary fluff of cotton candy to some, but, man, it sure gave you the energy to cut through the bullshit of the later 20th century.
I’m ever grateful for that: his writing certainly helped me to develop looking through the status quo, further enhanced by Robert Anton Wilson later in life. For these two great writers, able to look at the odd human behaviour of modern times, and still be humorous, about it, what great heart they had. Grumbles and gripes, awareness of horror, then the best defense of laughing at that idiocy. So very grateful for that example.
Here’s “How to Write with Style”: from the Vonnegut Wiki entry
On pages 9 and 10 of his book Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, Vonnegut listed 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.
You’ve done everything you were supposed to do, Mr. Vonnegut.
You can go home now.
