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Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
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Saw this on Facebook and wanted to share it with y'all.

quote:
Kurt Vonnegut's writing advice as quoted in Science Fictionisms (1995):

1. Find a subject you care about.
2. Do not ramble, though.
3. Keep it simple.
4. Have the guts to cut.
5. Sound like yourself.
6. Say what you mean to say.
7. Pity the readers.


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Grumpy old guy
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Number 7 is particularly interesting. I take it to mean: understand the science you are writing about but there's no need to provide the readers with the method and equations used in calculating an orbit.

Provide the flavour and taste, not the recipe.

Phil.

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Denevius
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quote:
All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are more or less true. One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn't his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war. And so on. I've changed all the names.
Yes, way to ground me in the scene, Kurt. I can really imagine that guy, who definitely isn't that other guy, in that war. And I guess the italics (his, not mine) are to make sure that readers know his character really means what he's saying and isn't just bu**shi**ing us. Because when people put things in italics, or ALL CAPS, we know that they mean business.
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extrinsic
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Writing guidance also from Kurt Vonnegut Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, 1999, G.F. Putnam's Sons, from the coda.

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted. [appeal]

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for. [empathy-tension]

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water. [complication]

4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action. [event, setting, character development]

5. Start as close to the end as possible. [fragment starts]

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. [antagonism, causation, tension]

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. [focus]

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. [linger]

Braces c'est moi.

[ January 13, 2015, 04:58 PM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]

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Denevius
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quote:
Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action. [event, setting, character development]
*Every* sentence?

1) All this happened, more or less. (no event, no setting, no character. And this is the first sentence of the novel, usually a very important one).

2) The war parts, anyway, are more or less true. (No specific event, as war parts tells me nothing. no setting, as the world is, has been, and probably will always be full of wars, so I have no idea which one he's talking about. No character except someone who seems to have problems getting to a point).

3) One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn't his. (I guess better late than never to start following the rules. Third sentence, we finally meet someone, some guy. We have a place, Dresden, but since I've never been, I'm still not set in any kind of scene. And the guy wants something, a teapot. Why a teapot and not a coffee pot is the question, but I'm betting it's for narrative whimsy).

4) Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war. (another character, another guy. Guess there are no women with wants in Dresden, if this is indeed still Dresden. Non-specific place. This guy does want something, murder, but *why* is a mystery.)

5) And so on. (Yes, why not. The reader hasn't gotten much information so far, so why not let their imagination fill in the gaps).

6) I've changed all the names. (somewhat weird statement since, up to now, we've gotten no names.)

quote:
Start as close to the end as possible.
I guess the first sentence starts at the end, but by sentence 3 he's doubled back to some non-specific place that's not "the end".

quote:
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.
The most awful thing to happen to the character so far is that he has bad memory. Not *bad* memories, which would be interesting, but literally bad recall.

quote:
Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible.
HAHA, WHAT?!? (caps mine). Seems almost like a joke with an opening like this.
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wetwilly
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I don't have strong feelings about Vonnegut--I've read one of his books and liked it okay, and I do like Harrison Bergeron, but it's not, like, my favorite--but I would argue that this passage does actually reveal a lot of character pretty effectively, Denevius. It doesn't give you much biographical info (except implying that "I" fought in a war), but it does a damn fine job establishing personality and voice. This guy is wishy-washy, confused, unsure of himself, and that screams through these lines loud and clear.

On an unrelated note, I saw Kurt Vonnegut speak when I was in college. He just rambled for a couple hours about crap that he hated. I was disappointed; I was hoping for more pearls of literary wisdom from on high. He was about a billion years old at the time, though, and died very shortly thereafter, so I guess he had the right to ramble about whatever he felt like.

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Brendan
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I'd have to disagree with your analysis, Denevius. The first two sentences are characterisation - of the author's voice and (perhaps) central character (depending on who it turns out to be). It says that he is willing to make grand, black-and-white statements, and then modify them almost into the opposite extreme. That suggests a lot about the inconsistency of the characters, how one should read the narrative and potentially a lot about the central theme.
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extrinsic
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Writing discussion is impossible when faced by denial.

Here's a challenge: reconcile Vonnegut's discourse and craft aesthetics, his writing guidances, popular and critical acclaim of his works, and four million consumers bought Slaughterhouse-five: appeal.

Vonnegut's irony and reflexive voice are among macro features of his literary science fiction. Postmodernism too: self-aware challenges to and questions of presupposed notions of propriety. Slaughterhouse-five and Breakfast of Champions are metafiction as well, and a two-part quasi serial franchise.

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Denevius
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quote:
It doesn't give you much biographical info (except implying that "I" fought in a war)
Actually, I didn't realize the narrator fought in a war. Because I learn nothing about him in these opening sentences, he could have simply been a bystander to a war. He could have been a victim of a war. He could have just had interesting conversations with veterans after a war, or before a budding war.

You are right in that the narrator seems confused and not trust worthy. However, in the meanderings of the first lines of SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE, there's not one unique sentence, thought, reflection, description, name, sentence construction, etc. What we have instead is a bland opening narrated by a confused voice. The question becomes what in these opening lines inspires anyone to read on besides the fact that you've started it?

quote:
It says that he is willing to make grand, black-and-white statements, and then modify them almost into the opposite extreme.
Maybe. I admit I got about ten pages into the book and put it down in disgust. I don't exactly know what line you see as grand, however. The first one about something that happened, kind of. Or the second about "war parts"? I wouldn't use the word grand as *general*, which in my mind is more what he's doing. Using generalities.

And finally, I'm not sure how this opening can be said to have followed the rules of advice that's listed here in this thread. Are we getting all the information up front. If so, wouldn't we have better specifics as to what war, where, and something more about the guys?

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Grumpy old guy
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Six sentences isn't much to base a comparison between his advice and his execution in his own works.

For me, these opening six sentences speak volumes as to character, milieu, and back-story. What he's about to tell us is partially true, the war parts anyway, for the most part--perhaps. An unreliable narrator if ever there was one--again, perhaps. It leaves the question: Is this a pack of lies or are the qualifications there because the truth is unlikely?

It could be post WW2 Dresden, I'm not sure 'cos I haven't read the book, but if it is, the getting killed for a teapot which, on the surface seems so trivial, is truly a matter of life or death.

It does paint the picture of a populace devastated, both physically and psychologically, by the war.

Finally, as an opening I find it has a unique voice; not one I immediately like and not one I think I could ever empathise with. But I'd give it a go.

Phil.

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extrinsic
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I have read and closely studied Vonnegut's works. He doesn't handhold or spoonfeed readers. His discourse methods are generally borrowed from Romanticism conventions of overt narrator summary and explanation lecture tell, implied writer, if not real writer, "intrusions," overt narrator mediated expression, attitude, and emotion, and implications of moral superiority.

However, Vonnegut's irony, situational and extended, bends those traditional conventions to Postmodern purposes. An extended irony, for example, is, though the voice is somewhat traditional, Vonnegut warps the moral superiority of classic era Romanticism into a question of morality's notional superior propriety -- an unreliable narrator implies the notions of moral superiority portrayed are flawed. Exquisite irony. Slaughterhouse-five's antiwar manifesto implies a subjective antiwar attitude subject to individual question and interpretation. The novel's publication era is at the height of twentieth century Western antiwar protests. The narrator also pokes irony into antiwar protests.

What's a reader to believe from such an infirm ground? Exactly what Vonnegut's moral and message is throughout his work: Think consciously, critically, responsibly for yourself or, to your detriment, others will. Not to mention, the acorn of Postmodernism's expression.

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Denevius
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Well, definitely once you've made it, future generations of readers are more kind to your work (though the critique of art not aging well with time is made sometimes; for instance, I still find the movie AMERICAN BEAUTY to be a powerful film, but reading critiques of it now, particularly of the male lead, is brutal).

quote:
It does paint the picture of a populace devastated, both physically and psychologically, by the war.

I guess. I had two good friends who I knew years before they served in Iraq during the war, and who I met with a couple of times when they finally came home. I wonder how devastating they would find sentences like, "Some guy taking a teapot", and "some other guy who hired some random dudes to shoot some unnamed bloke".

Yes, very compelling writing. Whereas my friend's friend was killed in the tent during a mortar attack, and it was his job to clean it up. Like, pick up the pieces, literally, of his best mate. I'll never forget the look he had on his face when he told me this story.

But okay. If some guy who wants to shoot some other guy is compelling war writing, so be it. However, let's look at another first person anti-war fictional opening.

First line of Kurt: 'All this happened, more or less.'

First line of Joe Halderman: '"Tonight we're going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man."'

And the whole thing:

quote:
"Tonight we're going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man." The guy who said that was a sergeant who didn't look five years older than me. So if he'd ever killed a man in combat, silently or otherwise, he'd done it as an infant.
Now, this is chock-full of information. We get a sense of time, we know what the event is, we know that this is part of the war complex, and we know that the narrator is young and wide-eyed with ignorance.

But okay, Kurt is going for a stoner opening. His character is confused, which we all agree with. And he's not trustworthy, which we all agree with, too. It's a funny thing about untrustworthy people in real life, though. Generally, because they've gotten used to having their b.s. catch up with them, they become really good at sounding convincing. If you're an untrustworthy individual, the last thing you want to come off as untrustworthy.

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Robert Nowall
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I can't agree with Denevius's argument here---it implies that the writer must assume the reader is completely and utterly ignorant, that everything must be explained.

What the reader might not know was that Kurt Vonnegut was a POW at the end of World War II, that he was taken to the city of Dresden, and that he was there when Dresen was firebombed. (To an extent, the experience shaped his life and work---very often his characters retreat to some underground place that, in the end, provides no safety.)

What the reader would know, unless the reader is, as I said, "completely and utterly ignorant," is that there was a war called World War II (up through the end of the Vietnam War, and when Slaughterhouse Five was published, "the war" would have referred to World War II); that there was a city in Germany by the name of Dresden (basic geography), and that said city was firebombed by the Allies in the closing days of the war.

Now, I read Slaughterhouse Five sometime in the mid- to late-1970s---I was a high school student at the time, and it's possible I may have learned of Dresden and its firebombing from the book. (I think I read Breakfast of Champions first.) I may have been ignorant, but I was also a bright kid and I could pick up on what Vonnegut was saying.

Actually, I don't think the "completely and utterly" reader would be tempted to read Vonnegut at all...

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extrinsic
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Joe Halderman's The Forever War and Kurt Vonnegtut's Slaughterhouse-five's opening paragraphs serve the least necessary opening function; that is, upset emotional equilibrium. Forever War's cynical sarcasm and Slaughterhouse-five's irony.

Slaughterhouse-five's first chapter is prologue like in that the chapter establishes the narrator's identity while metafictionally and reflexively determining whether to write the novel. The ironies abound of -- not an untrustworthy narrator -- of an emotionally damaged personality seeking meaning from a tragic life. Another Romanticism era convention is also patent from the first line: the narrator persona, one of Vonnegut's several narrative personas, asserts the truth of the matter. Though the assertion is made ironically.

Irony for general readers and not a few folk generally is a mysterious rhetoric. More often than not, what folk label irony is sarcasm or cynicism or coincidence. Ironically, Pastor So-and-so's Sunday sermon thundered about the vice of envy, yet he was under review and possible removal from office for troublesome jealousy toward the children's faith minister. Coincidence and cynicism, not irony. Sarcasm also, confused with irony.

Irony's a cognitive function younger, less sophisticated persons have not fully developed, if they will. They may use irony, though often admixed with sarcasm, which is foremost the intent and meaning. Sarcasm and irony are distinguishable and divisible rhetorics.

The Forever War's mainstay is cyncism mixed with sarcasm or sarcasm by itself, of a battle-tested, competent, and committed veteran.

Slaughterhouse-five's rhetoric is the ironies of a war-broken, conscientious objector, reluctant warrior. "So it goes," is a recurring fatalist "sound bite" expression of central agonist, alter ego Vonnegut persona Billy Pilgrim. Ironic that. The novel is partly autobiographical. Vonnegut was a World War II soldier, prisoner of war confined in Schlachthof Fünf, Slaughterhouse-five, and survived the Dresden fire bombing there, as Billy Pilgrim does.

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TaleSpinner
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This seems to be Vonnegut's original essay "How to write with Style":

http://kmh-lanl.hansonhub.com/pc-24-66-vonnegut.pdf

The advice quoted in the FB post comprises the subheadings of the essay - and I wonder if they are KV's words, or were they inserted by a copy-editor? - it's an essay in the IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication. For me, KV's essay clearly explains the principles for good writing he intended to suggest (I do not think he meant his ideas to be summarised in a simplistic set of "rules") and, again, for me, the first chapter of S-5 aligns well with the advice in his essay - especially given that an informed reader comes to his book knowing it's "autobiographical fiction", based upon his (surely traumatic) experience of the Dresden Firebombing.

I especially like "Find a subject you care about." which for me beats "write about what you know" because I believe a writer's passion drives good story-telling - and because I know a load of stuff that ain't worth writing about.

Pat

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Denevius
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quote:
Actually, I don't think the "completely and utterly" reader would be tempted to read Vonnegut at all...
I guess, but if you look at the words of the opening by themselves, I can't help but wonder how their weakness isn't clearly apparent, but also can't help but notice how Kurt isn't even following his own rules to good writing.

Let's look at another anti-war first person narrative and compare.

First line of Kurt: 'All this happened, more or less.'

First line of Joe Halderman: '"Tonight we're going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man."'

First line of Robert Anton Wilson: 'It was the year when they finally immanentized the Eschaton.'

I admit that it took me a google search to remember what 'immanentized the Eschaton' meant (I haven't read this book in some 20 years). But there's a uniqueness to this opening that tickles the fancy.

And the rest of it is:

quote:
It was the year when they finally immanentized the Eschaton. On April 1st, the world's great powers came closer to nuclear war than ever before, all because of an obscure island called Fernado Poo. By the time international affairs returned to their normal cold-war level, some wits were calling it the most tasteless April Fools joke in history.
This is also an unreliable narrator, which you see in the very next line, but to be fair to Kurt, I'll leave the excerpt here. But if you see, I'm sure most people wouldn't know what the first line means without looking it up, they wouldn't know what/where the island, Fernado Poo, is, but, depending on their age, they'll have some knowledge of the cold war and its significance.

But even without knowing all of this, key words tell you everything you *need* to know in order to become engaged in the narrative. We all know what nuclear war is, and how it would end the human race. And it says right there in the opening that the island, Fernado Poo, is obscure. You don't have to google it, it's right there, and the irony of the human species becoming extinct through nuclear war over an obscure island, with the name "pooh" in it, no less, abounds. And finally to write it all off, the extinction of the human race, as a tasteless April Fools joke, is kind of brilliant.

I guess I find it hard to see how one can actually look at the words on the page of Vonnegut's writing and not see it as extremely mediocre.

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extrinsic
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To quote Billy Pilgrim, "So it goes." An understatement. Understatement is a form of verbal irony. Halderman and Wilson use overstatement, may or may not be irony, which to me combined with sarcasm diminishes irony into inaccessibility at the expense of hyperbole. Irony is the rhetoric of commentary upon the human condition that is at the core of prose composition.

"So it goes." Readers who resist Vonnegut's appeals cannot be made to, expect or expected to be, interpreted for, explained for, or to become self-selected eager readers. Vonnegut's works require perhaps more effort than general readers are ready, willing, or able to make. That is part of Vonnegut's appeal; that is, some degree of more-than-general intellectual effort is necessary to appreciate the work. The appeal at root is inclusive exclusivity: self-selected inclusion or exclusion. "So it goes."

Lest it be claimed that requiring intellectual effort is the death of a creative work, readers are first and subtly if nonconsciously engaged intellectually. Then comes imagination engagement, then emotional. General readers might become aware of engagement at the emotional stage; might not. Only that they are engaged somehow occurs to them at some point.

[ January 15, 2015, 04:16 AM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]

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Grumpy old guy
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Personally, I prefer the Vonnegut fragment to the Wilson one. It has character and voice.

Wilson's opening sentence falls utterly flat if you don't know what he's talking about. And still does, even after looking it up on Google, along with Fernando Po--not Poo(h). Close book cover and put back on shelf. The prose is trite and flippant.

My fancy remains untickled.

Phil.

PS. I loved the premise of The Forever War. And, it's a fine example of explaining scientific theory (the Einstein effect as you approach the speed of light) without getting bogged down in the technicalities.

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Denevius
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quote:
Wilson's opening sentence falls utterly flat if you don't know what he's talking about. And still does, even after looking it up on Google, along with Fernando Po--not Poo(h). Close book cover and put back on shelf. The prose is trite and flippant.
I'm definitely not of the opinion that because writing has sold millions, won numerous literary prizes, has been translated into several languages, and was the impetuous for an important cultural trend in America, that this should disqualify text from critical analysis.

At the same time, if we look at the list of rules posted by Extrinsic, it seems that Wilson's opening is following them closer than Vonnegut's opening. From the first line, we have sky high stakes:

quote:
It was the year when they finally immanentized the Eschaton.
Sure, you have to look it up, but once you get the meaning, it nails advice number 6:

quote:
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.
Nothing like the threat of annihilation hanging over your characters' heads. And it'll be hard to say you don't know what's going on from this opening (excluding the first sentence): potential of nuclear war over a small island named Poo.

quote:
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 question isn't whether you're subjectively in love with either opening. Whether, it's what opening nails the craft themes that Vonnegut finds important enough to impart upon other writers.
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Grumpy old guy
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Originally posted by Denevius:
quote:
At the same time, if we look at the list of rules posted by Extrinsic, it seems that Wilson's opening is following them closer than Vonnegut's opening.
I think this says a lot about rules, not writing prose. The list at the start of this thread, along with OSC's MICE mantra, and various others too numerous to name, are simply checklists for writers who are either too lazy, or inept, to construct original, engaging prose of their own.

As for the craft themes Vonnegut, or anyone else, seem to think are essential, that's their opinion--I have my own.

Phil.

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extrinsic
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One consensus knows Vonnegut deviates from his own espoused rules. Another consensus knows Vonnegut emulates the principles he espouses. Does a common ground apply? Only subjectively.

American Book Review lists "All this happened, more or less." as number 38 of the top hundred best first lines from novels. Similar lists place the line in the top ten or others in lower rank though no less one of the top first lines among stellar competition. William Gibson's Neuromancer, number thirty at ABR. Many, if not most best first line lists index "Call me Ishmael." number one: first place at ABR.

Slaughterhouse-Five's title and subtitle express (imply) a great deal of detail, too, before the first line. Slaughterhouse-Five, or the Children's Crusade, A Duty-Dance with Death.

Event development? War implied. Setting? Time, place, and situation: Place? At a charnel house, like, war is slaughter. Time? Like, later, though readers of the time of publication new from word-of-mouth buzz the time was World War II. Situation? War. Character development? The title and subtitle's start are further supported by "All this happened, more or less." All this war and other stuff happened to moi: first-person narrator. Moi experienced this war stuff in person, more or less, and is fatalistically ironic about it.

The teapot line, for readers, develops further later, though, at first read, the implication is a looter was shot over a misapprehended teapot. The contract killings speculated also develops further later, though, at first read, the implication is Mafiosa mischiefs. These are curiosity arousal features -- not cliffhangar suspenses -- introduced and left for development and satisfaction later. Promised. Exquisite.

[ January 15, 2015, 04:18 AM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]

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TaleSpinner
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In chapter one of S-5, KV says of his novel, “It’s so short and jumbled and jangled.” He saw Dresden’s firebombing as a massacre and it was clearly traumatising, and the inspiration, if that’s the word, for S-5. How do you write a novel about a massacre? Who’s the protagonist? What do they want? What’s the cost of failure? How does the protagonist change?(He learns to abhor war.)
If KV’s first chapter doesn’t match the guidance he offers in “How to write with Style” (and I do not agree there’s a substantive difference), given his sales and critical acclaim, I’m not sure it matters. And the lessons I take from this discussion to my writing are:

• Even successful writers find it difficult to explain in clear terms that anyone can grasp how to write fiction;
• Reducing such guidance to a few bullet points risks misunderstandings: KV’s message wasn’t in the bullets, so to speak;
• As extrinsic notes, some fiction requires what he called “more effort” on the part of the reader-what I’d call “active reading”, and such fiction might be hard to sell;
• There’s no accounting for taste – “So it goes,” and always will.
• A novel inspired by traumatic experience might not fit the rules as we know them, Jim. And an anti-war novel about a massacre mightn’t either. (In contrast, Haldeman takes an ingenious military SF approach with “Forever War” which I liked.)
• Memo to self: forget that hearing KV speak at Reading University in the late 70s was uninspiring because as an SF writer he didn’t mention space-ships, blasters and Dilithium crystals. Remember that he’d written an anti-war book at a time when the USA was fighting and losing its young in Vietnam. Consider giving S-5 another read, this time an active read with the history of its author’s traumatic experience in mind – and hope to learn how he made a best-seller out of a tough topic in which there were no winners, in what was no doubt an unreceptive American market (due to the anti-war sentiment of the book).

Pat

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Reziac
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I read S-5, back when I would read anything with words. Probably 40 years ago.

Rather, I slogged through it to the end, because that was back before I quit on books I didn't like.

I was bored. BORED. That's it.

Oh, and I found the film boring too. (Then again, I was bored by =every= film the person I saw it with dragged me to.)

Some people are much better at providing advice than in living by it.

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Robert Nowall
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Come to think of it, I think I saw the movie of Slaughterhouse Five before I read the book, too...the movie changed a couple things 'round.
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Kent_A_Jones
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TaleSpinner
quote:
• Even successful writers find it difficult to explain in clear terms that anyone can grasp how to write fiction;
Writing fiction isn't difficult to advise: lie. That's the long and short of fiction. The best lies have some truth to them. The best liars have learned how to balance that truth for believability ('Suspension of disbelief' in speculative fiction). Time travel, ice nine, the Kennedy family taking over the world, a little alien screwing with history to create a part for his space ship. Lies!

Plato's reason for chucking us all out of utopia was that we're all liars. Perhaps successful writers are better liars than most and simply don't know how to tell the truth.

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extrinsic
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Oh my, liars? Maybe misdirectors. A larger, more profound, subtle quality of artful prose is how an overt action, the fiction, packages a covert action -- the human condition truth's misdirection of substance. Billy Pilgrim's covert action, so to speak, for example, is making a personally meaningful sense of human vices: wrath, sloth, pride, envy, greed, gluttony, lust. "So it goes."
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TaleSpinner
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i've been reading S-5 again, for the first time since quitting reading it part way through some thirty or forty years ago. And I've quit again, finding that, knowing now of KV's experiences of Dresden in WWII, and sharing his abhorrence of war, makes the book no more engaging than I found it first time around.

First, it's not science fiction, not in the John W Campbell tradition I enjoy. It does have time travel and aliens from another planet, but KV could have told the story without the quasi-SF elements: the time travel is just a device he uses to make the story line "non-linear", in other words, to ignore the "rule" I learned that a story "has a beginning, middle and end," and the time sequence that that implies. It seems that KV wanted to tell us how dreadful was Dresden, and just threw in scenes he wanted to recount, using the time travel device to create a spurious relevance, or maybe to create the confusion of mind that he felt in war. Either way, it's not time travel, just an annoying, disorienting narration device.

And who knows what the aliens are about; they're introduced quite early by Billy Pilgrim, the MC, and immediately dismissed by his wife as the nonsense that they are. They're symbols neither for Nazis nor for war-mongering Generals, as one might expect. I doubt the story would be any less meaningless if they were removed.(Campbell's test of SF was that the S had to be intrinsic to the story.)

When I was younger, I would have regarded the nonsensical time travel and nonsensical aliens as failures to satisfy the contract with the reader that OSC describes, and given that at that time I read hard SF, nothing but, this was no doubt one reason I put the book aside.

I've lost interest in the book because it doesn't observe some elements of writing guidance that for me have become "rules" for writing, because they reflect the main reasons I quit reading stories before the end.

I think these missing tips are big gaps in the summary of KV's writing tips:

1. Create an MC with whom the reader can sympathise or identify; or, create an MC the reader cares about. I don't care about Billy Pilgrim. He's a cardboard model of the author - about whom, as a human being I do care. But Billy's merely a passenger in his story, He's swept along by events and bullies, almost completely passive.

2. create a "want" for the MC and resolve it in the story. Presumably Billy wants to survive the war (but we know that he does) and wants for there to be no more wars (KV admits in Chapter 1 that an anti-war story is like an anti-glacier story: wars and glaciers will happen despite anything we might write in stories: so right there in Chapter 1 he tell us that the whole thing is a fool's errand - why did some of us read on?) and wants us to understand and sympathise with his war experiences (KV seems to have forgotten his advice to "Pity the reader" and this last want of Billy's won't be satisfied if the book is, as KV admits in Chapter 1, "jumbled and jangled" - and therefore unread.

3. "show don't tell" I suspect that this is a "rule" that KV understood. But it seems to me that in his desire to make us see that war is horrific, he only shows us war scenes, while we're only told not shown Billy's life as a well-off optometrist with wife, children, nice house, nice car in America and in a "jumbled and jangled" manner with Billy popping through doors into various years of his life seemingly at random. So as with time travel and aliens, "show don't tell" is a device KV uses selectively to put across his anti-war message.


4. "a story is not a list of events or scenes" this is the slasher movie format, one I won't watch. I've quit S-5 about 30% read, believing that much of the rest of it will belike a slasher movie: "Show not tell" scenes from Dresden and behind enemy lines in WW II Germany, and random "tell not show" snippets of life without war through doors in time or alien eyes.


I think KV has followed his first rule too faithfully. He clearly feels passionate that war, the Dresden attack especially, is (or was) wrong. But I think it's a mistake to try to preach in fiction. I tried to do it once in a short story and was rightly criticised for failing to put the opposing case authentically: Dresden's firebombing was at the time contentious because the numbers of civilian (and POW) deaths seemed disproportionate compared with the military advantages that were claimed; I suppose KV might redress this balance in the 70% of the novel I've skipped, but there's no hint of balance thus far and my patience and wllingness to invest time and attention to the story, which was initially driven by sympathy with KV's message,and curiosity about what brought the book sales and critical success, is exhausted, driven away by a passive MC, meaningless aliens and a chaotic "accidental time-traveller" approach to the story.

If KV can achieve sales success with his incomplete set of tips does that mean that for us as writers, our rules such as "Establish sympathy with MC", "create a want and resolve it," and "show don't tell," are wrong? - No, I think they're right, to the extent of being useful principles for writing an engaging story. (some, indeed were in KV's other list - the one that extrinsic found; one wonders why they didn't make it into the IEEE essay from which KDW's list was abstracted.)

Why did so many people buy and claim to like such an abstruse novel? Was abstruse the flavour of the month at that time? Was it fashionable to pretend to understand what must have been for many a closed book? Could S-5's success be ascribed to a thirst for an anti-war message at the time of the Vietnam war, one that S-5 satisfied with literature-like SF camouflage that rendered it not overtly politically incorrect?

[ January 20, 2015, 06:02 AM: Message edited by: TaleSpinner ]

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Kent_A_Jones
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Good points TaleSpinner, points I agree with completely. I consider Vonnegut's work, and specifically Slaughterhouse 5 an extension of the Theater of the Absurd genre. Catch 22 by Heller is another such work; absurd events played against an absurd background presented in an often disjointed manner by a bland observer (I can't call Billy or Yossarian true MCs).

KV breaks the fourth wall on a number of occasions, specifically, I hope I get the quote right after thirty-some years, "That was I. That was me. That was this author." Please correct me if I'm wrong.

KV never pitied a reader, and often made fun of both readers and critics. He authored during a time when art was enjoying no boundaries, insulting itself as it belittled its public with deliberate jabs intent on showing everyone that everything is meaningless. He was a darling of Playboy magazine for a time, thrusting him into a spotlight ill fitting his temperament.

His writing advice (Thank you TaleSpinner for the link) is schlock when written upon a body of work that often violates it (Although he always sounds like himself). Removed from his work, his advice is relevant in a general way, a stock character father's life advice to a freshly minted idiot son; don't take any wooden nickels. I'll smile now, and go off to seek my fortune.

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extrinsic
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An art form and science in itself, literary analysis, also known as criticism, entails a "rule" set too. Analysis principles and guidelines are no more ironclad absolute than other expression principles, creative writing for one. However, criticism's set's function is to foster commonality for at least reception and comprehension ease, if not the third corner, appeal, or the fourth corner, perhaps most significant, consensus agreement for social bonding purposes.

Toward those ends, literary analysis-type criticism, like most formal argumentation expression, has five fundamental guidelines.
  • No personal sentiments, also stated as no original research, or unsupported personal, subjective opinions. Impersonal expression only.
  • Neutral point of view, also known as no personal attitude, full and balanced at least realization of all relevant positions. In argumentation theory, this is known as "anticipate and rebut objections," the fourth and fifth argumentation attributes. Also impersonal expression only.
  • Cite verifiable, credible sources, also known as corroboration, the support attribute of argumentation, the third argumentation criteria; also known as impersonal expression only, actually, assignment of responsibility to other, accepted as valid positions only.
  • Contravene or ignore "rules" which obstruct an argumentation's appeal or reception and comprehension ease or diminish an argumentation's delivery.
  • Formulate consensus conclusions, also known as persuasion and appeal, the sixth argumentation attribute.
(The first argumentation attribute is assert a valid, appealing claim; second is assert a valid and appealing reason for the claim: these latter two are the so-called "hook" of argumentation.)

A consensus of literary critics and writing instructors not widely held by the general public is all expression is argumentation regardless of category: performance expression (prose, poetry, script, plastic arts, stage, screen, or improvisation, etc.), research and report, problem inquiry and satisfaction, or declamation -- argumentation itself.

Fiction is argumentation in that a dramatic contest packages a persuasive moral human condition contest. Argumentation is persuasion. Persuasion is rhetoric. Fiction is persuasion. Fiction is rhetoric. Therefore, fiction is argumentation.

Kurt Vonnegut's fiction, fiction writing principles and guidelines, and argumentation follow all the above, most perhaps significantly, ignore "rules" that diminish an argumentation, no matter if those "rules" are self-imposed or self-selected. Consensus enclaves about Vonnegut's works fall out into two primary polarities, approve or disapprove. Vonnegut's place in human society and culture is no less or more a contention than any other person's who dares stick a head above a radar horizon.

Personally, I feel and believe, perhaps know, that it behooves a writer who would be successful to prospect for at least strengths in Vonnegut's or any creator's expression. Shortfalls are easy to locate. We are, after all, human: subject to imperfection, flaw, frailty, vice. We are inclined to find fault in others, tolerate, if obliviously, our own shortfalls.

Therefore, expression analysis is best practice oriented upon strengths, at least so that we may enjoy consensus bonding's welcomes. Negative criticism may appeal to like-minded sorts, generally though, negativity alienates. This is the first-principle basis of literary analysis: cooperation for the sake of community binding.

I cut my literary analysis eyeteeth on Vonnegut, among many other writers. Close, "active" reading of Vonnegut is tedious, as tedious as static reading of his works for simple gratification entertainments. Reading Vonnegut's writing takes more than baseline efforts. Reading and response were required, though. Negative criticism earned F's or D's or C's. Positive criticism fared no better. Method, intent, or meaning analysis earned B's and A's, more A's than not at first, then straight A's. The few failures -- professors allowed revised responses. Through trial and error, I won through sooner rather than later.

A dissent may be construed that I conformed to capricious, if not whimsical, if not individual and subjective professors', expectations of the academy paradigm. Validly. However, the cooperation principle prevailed. Go along to get along.

A counter dissent may also be construed that going along to get along with negativity requires like-minded negativity. Validly. The negative critics failed, though, because they formed their antisocial cliques based upon empty, meaningless challenges to authority or at least denial of precedent of literary analysis across millennia.

Once I'd persuaded myself to knuckle down, overcome "freshman denial," response became as easy as reading, if plowing through endless tedium, a valuable life-lesson in itself, and selecting one of a myriad of focal possibilities. Self-expression came from deciding from the choices, at first. The primary discourse, the narrative of the moment, is itself a meaning-making construct. My topic choice was, is, also a meaning-making construct, a secondary discourse to the primary one.

Next came stronger self-expression through taking a personal, subjective though supportable, albeit overtly objective, attitude toward a primary discourse. Disapproval is verboten!? Nicht! Irony is sublime. Gosh almighty, I realized irony from literary analysis of ironic works. Incorporation of irony into my responses earned A's and praise from professors, scorn from classmates' peer pressure.

Personal, subjective expression through impersonal, objective expression methods is a cognitive dissonance, impossible on its surface to reconcile satisfactorily. Through diagonal steps, though, reconciliation wins through. This is the point of literary analysis: foster self-reliant, conscious, critical, responsible thought for the sake of the common good.

I responded to Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions four times from high school through graduate school: D, B revised to A, A+, A++ and sincere praise. 4.0 overall college GPA. Practice improves outcomes.

Literary analysis matters very little to many writers, successful writers too. To me and a comparatively small writer consensus enclave, literary analysis matters greatly as at least a learning method, if not as contributory participants to human culture. Another matter for that enclave is stellar recognition mandates primary and secondary discourse. And secondary discourse. No negative critics are allowed. Life's too short for negativity when an ample quantity of positivity entertains and provides fertile and ripe food for thought.

Next and equally profound is literary analysis pays. Many literary journals pay for analysis articles, average about $0.25 per word and at up to eight thousand words: $2000.00.

Literary analysis for the initiated is simpler than prose creation. It's a living, a day job, while prose writing.

[ January 20, 2015, 02:34 PM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]

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Denevius
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quote:
Catch 22 by Heller is another such work; absurd events played against an absurd background presented in an often disjointed manner by a bland observer (I can't call Billy or Yossarian true MCs).
Calling any POV from CATCH 22 a bland observer is an interesting criticism (as well as comparing Vonnegut's mediocre writing to Heller's explosive prose).

The first line of CATCH 22:

quote:
It was love at first sight.
Okay, not the most brilliant line. A definite cliche, and the language isn't exactly popping off the page. You see a first line like this, you think maybe a romance with an unspecified POV as the pursuer. But then you get to the second line:

quote:
The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him.
WTF? Just in two lines, Heller has done something that most writers can't do in their whole books. He set you up for the predictable, and knocked your breath away with the unpredictable. 1961 America, and the opening challenges readers with a male professing love for another male during the time of war? Sure, it's a play on words, a play on themes, a play on social social mores, but it's a bold opening for a bold novel. And also, Yossarian? What the heck is a Yossarian?

Bland is the last adjective I would use to describe anything about CATCH 22.

You know, it's not so much whether you like the novel or not. But strength and weakness in writing, the actual words on the page, of these novels seems obvious to me. I think of Vonnegut as a writer who just got lucky (though making it in art always takes a healthy dose of luck). He wrote a mediocre book at the right time in American history and had just the right message to propel him into immortality.

I meet a lot of readers, and I meet a lot of writers. However, my personal experience with people who like Vonnegut is that no one comes to love him over a certain age. Like, I've never met a person 30 years or older who read S-5 for the first time and just loved it. Everyone I know who used to insist I read it were all university students. And really, since I graduated with my Bachelors, I've never again heard anyone name S-5 as a must read book. It's not a book people use for examples in writing. It's almost never mentioned in conversations about serious writing.

This in and of itself isn't bad, but it reminds me of my own personal experience with stuff I loved when I was younger, like THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, or movies like THE BREAKFAST CLUB. And really, I tried re-reading a couple of years ago the book to the opening I posted above, THE ILLUMINATUS! TRILOGY, and found I just wasn't blown away by it like I was when I was 20.

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