Despite feeling as inept as the rest of us Kurt Vonnegut is known as one of the 20th century’s great writers, penning classic novels like Slaughterhouse Five and Cat’s Cradle. He was also a noted journalist and a prolific short story writer.

Watch the clip below for Vonnegut’s eight pithy tips on writing a great short story. You can easily apply them to fiction of any length, his own work shows Vonnegut surely did.

My own favourite Vonnegut story is “King and Queen of the Universe” from the posthumous collection of unpublished works called Look at the Birdie.

Do you have a favourite Vonnegut story or novel? Please tell us in the comments.

Lurking dangers surround all that waiting. Self-doubt has lots of time to imagine unkind things being said to your story’s face (and to do its own unkind muttering in your head). The desire for regular coffee money might trick you into some cave of a job where you’re paid by the hour. Writer’s block (if you subscribe to that kind of notion) is more prone to leap upon you and starting chewing on your throat—especially if what you want to write next might depend (foolishly!) on whether the circulating work sells (my advice: write like it sells, or don’t and start something entirely new—just write!).

It’s not all bad though. If you let it, waiting to hear back can be kind of like counting down to a vacation. Each passing day is one closer to at least some sort of a response, the wait gets sweeter, the anticipation builds. I’ve learned to use the hope that just won’t die (I’m bandaging my throat here as you read!) as motivation to write the next thing. While your words sit on someone’s desk, there is the endless opportunity that said words might find a home—someone might like that story, poem, article, or what-have-you. Nothing is more inspiring than the idea that someone might relate to your offerings and even (gleep!) want more of them. Exciting stuff.

I try to take full advantage of this wait/hope phenomenon by keeping 6 – 8 things “out there” all the time. That way, rejection doesn’t hurt as much (hope sprints over to another project to rest on) and my inner-creep can’t do as much of a job on my self-esteem.

Hmmmm . . . Is there a point to this post? Yes (lectures self), get your stuff out there and keep it out there until it finds a home. And in the meantime, the waiting time, get busy on the next idea.

Happy writing,
☺ Ev

1. Opening ~ Is there something in your first line, first paragraph, or first page that hooks the reader and makes him/her want to read on?

2. Characters ~ Do your characters live off the page; do they seem like they must be real, living breathing people somewhere?

3. Dialogue ~ Do the things your characters say “ring true”? And does your dialogue move the story forward and add to characterization?

4. Plot ~ What does your character want and what’s getting in the way of his achieving that goal? Make sure it’s clear!

5. Theme ~ Does your story have some sort of lasting power? Does it give the reader something to think about after the last page is read? Is it about more than just the actions and events that take place between its pages?

6. Involvement ~ Does your reader get so caught up in the story that they forget they’re reading? Watch out for “telling” and explaining everything.

7. Language ~ Do you show a masterful command of language—maybe even flashes of brilliance? Find and destroy language/usage/grammar problems!

8. Pace ~ Page by page, do you create a “must keep reading” feeling?

9. Ending ~ Does your ending give your reader that “ahhh” feeling (happy or sad); does it add to the story as a whole?

That little extra ~ There are many other qualities that make a story jump off the page and into a reader’s head, so pay attention to the above, but don’t treat it like a check-list. Have fun with your stories; run with your inspirations. Concentrate on showing the story that you’re burning to tell, and regardless of contest or market response, don’t get discouraged. Keep getting the words out on paper!

Happy writing to us all,

Ev

The secret to finding ideas is this: they are everywhere. You just have to know how to tease them out of your memory, and I’ll tell you how to do that below.

I’ll share 3 story-generating ideas with you that I first learned about in Behind the Story by Ryan G. Van Cleave and Todd James Pierce.

1. Character Details: Think of an intriguing person you met recently or even a long time ago. Write down 25 details about them. Describe how they look, what they wear, gestures, and their general attitude. How many of your descriptions offer concrete details about the person’s character as opposed to fuzzy impressions. Doing this exercise can give you a start on creating a character in your short story.

2. Freewriting: Use a pen and paper or your computer for this exercise. Write “I remember” at the start of the page and then write with no preconceived notion of what you’ll write about. Continue writing even if you have to write “blah blah blah” for a bit. The goal is to keep going and to get those subconscious ideas out and on paper. Do this for 10 minutes. It may sound difficult, yet it’ll produce some ideas and some results – and it sure beats staring at a blank sheet of paper and getting discouraged!

3. Describe a Scene: This next idea comes from John Gardner’s Art of Fiction. “Describe a building as seen by a man whose son has just been killed in a war. Do not mention the son, war, death, or the old man doing the seeing.”

Many of these masters are busy people. Some of them have passed on decades ago. What is the best way to learn from these other writers?

They can come to you through Amazon or your local library. You do not need to spend a lot of money on books. You only need to make time, to have patience and to read in order to accomplish this task.

I’ve borrowed a list of short story collections that, if read carefully, will help you learn storytelling from the “master chefs” of writing. Stay tuned. Soon, I will share with you an amazing book about reading.

1. Best American Short Stories, ed. Shannon Ravenal, etc. (1980 – present)

2. O. Henry Prize Stories, ed. William Abrams, etc. (1980 – present)

3. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan

4. Lunar Landscapes, John Hawkes

5. Shiloh, Bobbie Ann Mason

6. Obscure Destinies, Willa Cather

7. Through the Safety Net, Charles Baxter

8. In the Land of Men, Antonya Nelson

9. Welcome to the Arrow-Catcher Fair, Lewis Nordan

10. Crash Diet, Jill McCorkle

11. All the Days and Nights, William Maxwell

12. Collected Stories 1939-1976, Paul Bowles

13. Break It Down, Lydia Davis

14. The Coast of Chicago, Stuart Dybek

15. Read This and Tell Me What It Says, A. Manette Ansay

When I experienced a difficult time with writing, I turned to The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.

The book encouraged me to write three pages every day first thing in the morning. The idea behind writing three pages every day is to get the “gunk” out of our systems. As we write about our worries, about not being able to write and other such topics, we begin to free ourselves to create.

I discovered success with writing once I got rid of the “worry and negative gunk” in my head.

It’s not easy to write three pages every morning. Everything will try to conspire against you and prevent you from this goal. Assume that and plan for the worst. Your baby might cry you might catch a cold; you might have numerous life events taking place that make you think you don’t have a second to spare on writing.

When you sit to write your three pages per day, you call the writing muses to yourself. You inspired yourself. When you write three pages per day, you begin to feel a bit of pride. Maybe you do not like the work. Maybe it will be kept in a file somewhere, yet you are writing.

Writing is vital. You must be writing on a regular basis in order to learn how to write a short story.

One more tidbit from The Artist’s Way is not to read the pages and to put the three pages away. Do not look at them. Do not even sneak a little, itsy bitsy, tiny peek at the pages. They are not for you to judge. You can look at them in a month if you must. You do not want to look at them too soon and get too judgmental about your writing at this point.

Good luck with writing your three pages per day. Make this exercise work for you. If three pages sounds like too much, then start with one page and work your way up to three.

Look at this example of how to start a short story from Flannery O’Connor’s “Everything that Rises Must Converge”:

“HER DOCTOR had told Julian’s mother that she must lose twenty pounds on account of her blood pressure, so on Wednesday nights Julian had to take her downtown on the bus for a reducing class at the Y. The reducing class was designed for working girls over fifty, who weighed from 165 to 200 pounds. His mother was one of the slimmer ones, but she said ladies did not tell their age or weight.”

Notice how the first two words of the story suggest we already know who is meant by “her.” This familiarity strives to draw us into the next sentence. We learn a lot about the characters here – the mother is overweight, Julian does would prefer not to take his mother downtown, and the word “reducing” suggests restraint and an old-fashioned way of talking. We read that “Julian had to take her downtown” and know that Julian would prefer to be doing something else. The word “reducing” is less specific than “losing weight” yet still lets us know the reason for the class.

Another example of a good start to a story is this opening paragraph of O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find”:

“The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey’s mind. Bailey was the son she lived with, her only boy. He was sitting on the edge of his chair at the table, bent over the orange sports section of the Journal. “Now look here, Bailey,” she said, “see here, read this,” and she stood with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling the newspaper at his bald head. “Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn’t answer to my conscience if I did.”

In the very first sentence, we know the grandmother’s thoughts on going to Florida. We hear only her voice, which fills up the entire first paragraph. We might be thinking that this woman talks a lot. If she talks a lot, that might be annoying to her family. If she is annoying to her family, they might not listen to what she has to say very often.

O’Connor does not spend time telling us how they planned the trip, what led up to them taking the trip, etc. She chooses to start with the grandmother attempting to persuade her son not to visit Florida and is able to show us something about the grandmother’s character and personality in the process.

A good start to a short story contains the following:

A clear start;

An idea of what the characters are like (best shown through their words and actions);

An attention to individual words to show a character’s dislikes, likes and motivations.