With the passing of novelist Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) this weekend I'm pointing to the one novel among his 14 total that managed to breakout to cult film status. Directed by George Roy Hill, Slaughterhouse Five (1972) is composed of alien visitors and time travel – perfect for Sci-fi enthusiasts. His last novel to screen apatation was the little seen Breakfast of Champions directed by Alan Rudolph. Below I've included his humorous list of 8 writing rules that I came up upon on Wikipedia. Have a great weekend!
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.
