Langley Professional Writing
writing to inform, persuade or inspire!
  • Home
  • The Paper Garden (A Blog)
  • Creative Works
  • Services
  • Fees & Details
  • Testimonials
  • Contact Me

Of Short Story Construct and Hotel Gentrification

6/13/2013

3 Comments

 
Today Tin House linked over to Open Culture for a list of 8 suggestions for constructing a short story by Kurt Vonnegut. They are concise and helpful for every writer to bear in mind, or at least to try to only break one or two at at time:

  1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
  2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
  3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
  4. Every sentence must do one of two things–reveal character or advance the action.
  5. Start as close to the end as possible.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.


While each has strong merit, I'm paying particular attention to #8, since I chopped such a beginning from a recent CNF that has been getting rejections. Maybe I'll add the old beginning back and try another few places before I give up on it entirely. I am also going to have #4 tattooed to the inside of my wrist--happily my most recently completed story passed this test. Finally, we all pretty much know that I'm already committed to #6.

In other news, what does this image have to do with anything?

Picture

Read More
3 Comments
    Picture

    Pamela Langley

    In the past decade I have written memoirs for a nun, tutored children from Somalia, edited a college literary magazine, interned at Literary Arts in Portland,  published a few stories, graduated from University with highest honors, given a speech to a packed house at the Schnitz, remodeled a fixer-upper, written grants for programs that helped, extended my emotional /intellectual horizons, made an intra-state move, started a business, regained my groove, placed my finger back on the pulse, joined Facebook, Pinterest and LinkedIn, bought a smartphone,  traveled, raised puppies, and most importantly--honed my writing skills. I bare myself here on The Paper Garden and hope some moments will resonate with you.

    Archives

    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013

    Categories

    All
    Aesthetics
    Art
    Blogs
    Cats
    Censorship
    Change
    Creativity
    Design
    Easy Voice Recorder
    Gender
    Getting Started
    Hiring
    Humor
    Interactive
    Joy
    Philosophy
    Smartphone
    Technical
    Theory
    Travel
    Voice Recording
    Websites
    What's Appropriate
    Widgets
    Writing

    RSS Feed

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.