What nobody tells beginners

I found this quote on facebook, where it's lately been circulating among artistic types. I wish I had read this when I first started writing seriously—it would have helped a lot with the fear of not being good enough. But I think it's relevant for all aspiring author types, so here you go:

(Don't) Explain yourself!

So, there's this TV show here in Britain that Big Chimp and I like to watch. It's called Springwatch, and it's a live nature show broadcast over three weeks every spring. These people put cameras everywhere: bird nests, badger setts, fox dens, bat caves, and anywhere else you can think of out in nature. It's a fun, informative program. But a couple of years back, Big Chimp noticed one of the presenters, Chris Packham, doing something funny. As Packham talked about the animals, he would drop in titles of songs by The Smiths. He never acknowledged or made reference to what he was doing, and I probably wouldn't have even noticed it if Big Chimp (who is a huge music freak) had not called it to my attention. Shortly after that, we noticed something else—the note cards Packham was holding had artwork on the back of them—album artwork.

As the show went on, we began to appreciate it on two levels; we were still learning all about Britain's amazing wildlife, but we were also playing the game of seeing how many of Packham's popular culture references we could spot. Last year, Packham was at it again, but with song titles by The Cure. This year, it was all about sly references to Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers. And the allusions didn't stop there. At one point, while examining a nest of writhing grass snakes in a compost heap, Packham took a small model airplane from his pocket and placed it on top of the pile. Then he walked away, moving on to the next segment without any further explanation.

Springwatch presenters Chris Packham, Kate Humble, and Martin Hughes-Games*

Creative Writing 101

Since the post with quotes from famous authors the other day was pretty popular, I've decided to do another one. I found these writing rules from Kurt Vonnegut a couple years back, while I was researching a term paper for a class on contemporary authorship. It comes from the introduction to Bagombo Snuff Box. Vonnegut writes:

Now lend me your ears.  Here is Creative Writing 101:

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 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.

The greatest American short story writer of my generation was Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964).  She broke practically every one of my rules but the first.  Great writers tend to do that.


All of these rules make sense to me, except for number eight. I think that all stories require suspense. I would ideally want the reader to be furious if cockroaches ate the last few pages, because they were that eager to find out how the story would end.


What about you? Do you have any writing rules that you live by? If so, what are they?