Advice from Kurt Vonnegut on how to write fictional short stories

Number 6 is my favorite....


Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 19, 2011 at 12:19 PM

    Yes, I often set up the situtation and ask 'now, what is the worst thing that could happen?'

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alain GomezAugust 20, 2011 at 12:30 AM

    Seriously! I might feel guilty if it wasn't so fun. It's like the literary equivalent of taking off a doll's head. Even though I never took heads off dolls...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review of "Ferryman" by Nigel Edwards

Summary: "A mythology grew up around the Ferrymen, fostered by a mystique which they wrapped around themselves. Some thought them amoral servants of a ruling elite, sanctioned to undertake work beyond legitimate resolution; others with more fanciful imaginations – or who were more devout, depending on your point of view – believed them emissaries of Evil, with a capital E." Could the Ferrymen become real in your lifetime? Should they? Read this thoughtful and disturbing near-future science fiction story and decide for yourself. Review: This was a fantastic short story.  "Well-written" doesn't even begin to describe Ferryman ; it's engrossing.  The simple, clean style perfectly highlights our precise  protagonist.  If this future Edwards presents to us does in fact become a reality, the character he describes is exactly the type of person who would become a Ferryman: highly competent with the hint of a god complex. What's  especially clever abou
Read more

Interview with Author Hugh Howey

Welcome to Book Brouhaha! Why don't you start out by introducing yourself and telling us a little about "Wool." Thanks for having me, Alain! I suppose I'm just this normal guy who just wrote a little story called Wool. It's about a group of people who live underground. When their society turns on itself, it threatens all of mankind. In a way, it poses the conundrum of every revolution: How do you destroy an unjust social structure without the collateral damage being worse than the injustices were? I suppose the most interesting thing about me, personally, is that I lived on a sailboat while I was in college. This led to a career as a yacht captain, which sent me all over the Caribbean and the East Coast. I didn't start writing in earnest until my wife dragged me away from the sea and into the mountains. I've always loved the short form. I've been told that it isn't as marketable, even though science fiction has a long and glorious history of c
Read more

Ignorance is.... bliss?

I recently received a review of Celebrity Space that kind of embodies what I've been saying for a long time is the biggest issue for short story writers: ignorance. Here's the review: "Ok I read it. It isn't much of a story, I'm not even sure what happened. Maybe as an outline for a story twice or even 3X as long it wound be good. i don't think you can write a good story this short" It's a two star review.  It's neither the first two star review I've received nor the harshest.  The first part is just him saying he didn't care for it.  I'm fine with that.  What bothers me about this review is the last line.  It basically says it didn't matter what words I had written on the page.  The reviewer didn't care for the story because there weren't enough of them. Maybe this guy is a reading connoisseur and has read hundreds of short stories to finally come to this opinion.  But I doubt it.  I think he would be shocked if
Read more