Over the last few years, I've shared "Top 10" lists from several authors on the topics of writing and success.

This list wouldn't be complete without Kurt Vonnegut, one of our great American writers. He has inspired writers around the globe like Norman Mailer, John Irving, Michael Crichton, Margaret Atwood, David Sedaris, and J. K. Rowling.

Plus, he always makes me smile. And his birthday is the day after mine.

Why Kurt Vonnegut Stands Out to Me

This is a man who had a terribly hard life and somehow managed to retain his sense of humor and hope.

He fought in World War II as a very young man and was captured and held as a POW by the German Army. He was held in Dresden and witnessed the Allied bombing that turned the city to rubble, killing more than 135,000 people. He was one of the few who survived. After the bombings there was more horror. The Germans forced him to dig up bodies from all the debris and burn them in huge bonfires.

The horror of that experience drove him to write his most famous book, Slaughterhouse-Five, an anti-war novel he published in 1969. The book was selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time.

10 Favorite Tips from Kurt Vonnegut

Here are ten of my favorite Vonnegutisms on success, in life and in art.

1. Find a Subject You Care About

He urged writers to, "Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style."

This is actually one of the most difficult parts of noveling for me. Sustaining an idea, a story, a theme through hundreds of pages...in a way that keeps readers interested. That focus is exhausting for me and sometimes I've gotta stop, take a break, and write a short story or a few chapters in a different story.

(p.s. I guarantee if Laura Drake is reading this, her eye just started twitching. She's all, "story switching...shudders.")

Vonnegut is spot-on with the advice above. If we're interested, the reader is more likely to be interested too.

2. Write and Quit Your Damn Day Job

After selling his first story, Vonnegut wrote to his father and said this:

"I've deposited my first check in a savings account and, as and if I sell more, will continue to do so until I have the equivalent of one year's pay at GE (he was a publicity guy for them)...I will then quit this goddamn nightmare job, and never take another one so long as I live, so help me God."

Many of you have already quit those "goddamn nightmare day jobs." Others like me are still dreaming of the day. Regardless of where you are on the continuum of being able to write full-time, that's some good advice. I also suspect that writers made more per capita back then.

3. Write for your audience.

Vonnegut felt writing craft was important, and that you didn't learn it for you. Here's his take:

"Why should you examine your writing style with the idea of improving it? Do so as a mark of respect for your readers, whatever you’re writing. If you scribble your thoughts any which way, your reader will surely feel that you care nothing about them. They will mark you down as an ego maniac or a chowderhead — or, worse, they will stop reading you."

4. Your reader's time is valuable.

• Messy pages and lines waste the reader's time.
• Write with simple language.

There are several bullet points under this one because he felt so strongly about it. He really thought every writer should keep the reader in mind at every stage in the process.

"Remember that two great masters of language, William Shakespeare and James Joyce, wrote sentences which were almost childlike when their subjects were most profound. ‘To be or not to be?’ asks Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The longest word is three letters long. Joyce, when he was frisky, could put together a sentence as intricate and as glittering as a necklace for Cleopatra, but my favorite sentence in his short story ‘Eveline’ is just this one: ‘She was tired.’ At that point in the story, no other words could break the heart of a reader as those three words do.

• Write and cut.

Vonnegut had specific thoughts on what to cut from your novel.

"Your rule might be this: If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out."

5. Write off semicolons.

"All they do is show you have been to college," he said.

In many ways, this one could probably have been included in the previous point. However, Vonnegut didn't feel you needed to include semi-colons in those finished novel drafts. Ever. Since this made me laugh, it got it's own section.

6. Sound Like Yourself

Vonnegut understood the importance of "voice" and he explains it beautifully.

"The writing style which is most natural for you is bound to echo the speech you heard when a child..I myself grew up in Indianapolis, where common speech sounds like a band saw cutting galvanized tin, and employs a vocabulary as unornamental as a monkey wrench.

"I find that I trust my own writing most, and others seem to trust it most, too, when I sound most like a person from Indianapolis, which is what I am. What alternatives do I have?"

I have to tell y'all, that quote of his cleared something up for me.

I naturally slant toward Southern when I write. The voice in my head has a drawl. Since I did my primary and secondary education in California, that has never made sense to me until now. (I spent my early years in Virginia, Texas, and Missouri, interacting with an aunt who had a very pronounced Georgia drawl.)

7. Pity the reader.

This quote made me laugh.

"Readers have to identify thousands of little marks on paper and make sense of them immediately. They have to read, an art so difficult that most people don’t really master it even after having studied it all through grade school and high school — twelve long years."

"Our audience requires us to be sympathetic and patient teachers, ever willing to simplify and clarify, whereas we would rather soar high above the crowd, singing like nightingales."

8. His favorite style guide was Strunk & White.

"For a discussion of literary style in a narrower sense, a more technical sense, I commend to your attention The Elements of Style, by Strunk, Jr., and E. B. White. E. B. White is, of course, one of the most admirable literary stylists this country has so far produced.

"You should realize, too, that no one would care how well or badly Mr. White expressed himself if he did not have perfectly enchanting things to say."

Now I want to write something "perfectly enchanting." Heh.

9. Write stories with defined shapes.

The inspiration for this post came from reading this article and then watching this video a few weeks back. It's worth your 4 minutes. He's so very joyful.

Vonnegut taught writing at several different colleges and writing programs and it's probably safe to say we'd all have loved to be in his class. Amiright?

https://youtu.be/oP3c1h8v2ZQ

10. Write for yourself.

Kurt Vonnegut taught college classes but he would also periodically address younger audiences. He'd give them assignments like this:

"Write a six-line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don't tell anybody what you're doing. Don't show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever..OK?

"Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash receptacles. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what's inside you, and you have made your soul grow."

In other words, write the stories inside you. Enjoy them. Wallow in them. I hope you get to watch your soul grow.

Have you read any of Vonnegut's work? Which of the ten tips above is your favorite? Which one is the most challenging for you? Please share your wisdom with us down in the comments!

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About Jenny

By day, Jenny Hansen provides corporate communications and LinkedIn advice for professional services firms. By night she writes humor, memoir, women’s fiction, and short stories. After 20 years as a corporate trainer, she’s delighted to sit down while she works.

When she’s not at her personal blog, More Cowbell, Jenny can be found on Facebook at JennyHansenAuthor or at Writers In The Storm.

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Sources:

• 13 Ways to Write Live and Write like Kurt Vonnegut
• 8 Tips on How To Write a Great Story
• Kurt Vonnegut - How to Write with Style

By Kris Maze

You’ve written a book.  Or three.  Or three hundred.

You’re examining the road to publication. Or starting to query. Or multi-contracted.

You’re dutifully working through your first draft. Or working with an editor.  Or a publisher.

Wherever you are in your writing career, it may feel frustrating, tiresome, or difficult to continue on your passion of writing a book.  If your writing could use a boost and your writing enthusiasm is waning, consider making a calculated risk to revitalize your writing career.

Many writers have hit a wall with traditional publishing and while publishing their own books.  Although I am not describing specific tools in detail to revitalize the sale and publication of your own books, I will highlight a few that I have been trying and give insights to my experience so far.

5 Risky Ways to Add Life to your Writing Career

Risk #1 – Write in another genre

One simple way to add a little spice to your writing skills is to write in another genre. Writing outside your norm can benefit writers in many ways. By trying a new type of story writing you can experience these benefits. Writing in another genre...

• Offers different story length expectations

In my recent writing experiences, I have toyed with writing longer works and shorter novellas based on short stories I have written for contests.  Using feedback from the judges on the short stories helped me develop the new ideas into working longer books. 

Writing in different genres requires writing in different word count frameworks.  Epic Fantasy readers expect a lengthy, elaborate book, but some YA readers are as short as 10,000 words.

Not certain what is your genre’s word count expectation?  Read this blog post from Reedsy.com to find out more. There is an interactive quiz that requires an email, but this respected resource sends you information about the genre you write.

• Offers ways to explore more interests in writing.

Finding ways to incorporate realistic details into your work could involve learning a new skill or hobby. Here is a post I wrote earlier this year on the benefits of learning something new and how it can improve one’s writing.

• Offers ways to develop tropes, characters, and worldbuilding as you focus on the demands of the new genre.

I began my writing career with a sci-fi novella, but discovered my stories also resembled horror. After several of my short stories were returned to me with conflicting information about how it related to other speculative genres, it became apparent that my writing included scary, intense moments of fight or flight, and a force, or monster, to defeat. 

Given my love of Gothic fiction by classic writers like Thomas Hardy, Edith Wharton, and Edgar Allan Poe, it made sense that what I was writing was at it’s heart, horror.   It took me a while to accept my new calling to a genre I wouldn’t have claimed, but once I wrote longer scary works, the readership increased.  These stories have significantly more downloads than my other speculative works and the readers are more willing to interact with me.  Consider a new or adjacent genre to write and have fun with it. 

Risk #2 – Write in Another Location

Find a New Coffee Shop or Pub. 

Worried about distractions?  Pop in the earbuds. Get a beverage of choice and goooo!

People watch in a park.

Take notes, but try not to be that creepy guy or gal. It helps you avoid the nasty stares one can get as a result watching a stranger and putting all their interesting interactions to paper or pixel.

Take a writing vacation.

Time away from your day-to-day at home can inspire your writing.  Rent a place or borrow a friend’s cabin for a few weeks.  It can reset your mind and help the words flow on the page.

Vacations can also provide you with details helpful in world building. Go to the place you are trying to write about.  Find somewhere with a setting you want to include in your book and observe with your writer mind. Take a close look at what  people eat and what they wear.  Find out what people in this area do for fun or examine a tradition unique to their region.  Putting realistic and engaging details onto the page should be easier after experiencing it firsthand.

Find a local writing group and join them for writing sprints. 

Perhaps your “other place to write” is on online version for critiques.  Don’t be afraid to make new writer friends.  They may enable you to grow in your craft through accountability and new ideas.

There are several writing groups on Facebook that offer support to writers.  Several writers I know use these online critique groups and enjoy working with writers from around the world. Some are also experts and can offer insights on details within their stories.  One writer friend works with a scientist in their online group, which helps in editing her sci-fi novel.

Risk #3 – Write to promote your work

Many writers don’t want to spend time promoting their work, but it is a valuable way to sell more books. Taking time to connect with your readers is an important way to build a reading base of people exciting to buy books and invest in your stories.

Try one of these tried-and-true methods, if you are not sure where to start.

• Update your readers with a regular newsletter.  It could be weekly, twice a month, monthly, or once a quarter, for example.  Whatever frequency works for you should work, but know that it is best to fulfill reader expectations.  If you send out news once a month, try to keep it consistent. 
• Make valuable material available to your readers.  Creating interesting stories takes time and energy, but don’t neglect the other ways you can interact with your readers.  Build up a fan base by sending readers what they want. Wow them. Make it fun. Fill it with freebies.  Give them funny jokes and let them remember why they like reading your work to begin with. Tell a cute story about how an unexpected event turned into part of your novel.  Let them into your cool-as-a-crazy writing world and let them know you appreciate their continued readership.
• Get on social media.  It is easier than ever to interact with readers with many social media options. Some writers believe that it’s important to post across all media.  And although it is a strategy, it may be better to narrow down your efforts to the online places where your readers like to hang out. Find out where your readers are and have some fun with them.

Pro Tips:

• If you find a mystery-loving Facebook group or an Instagram sweet romance author with many follows, study what they are doing when you use online tools to schedule your post.
  • Look at other author’s posts that generate comments and follows and find out which hashtags they use.  Consider using ones that resonate with your work and brand.
  • Identify what types of media they use to attract their readers?  Do they have short stories?  Do they use book segments or dramatic readers to draw in readers?  Are flashy, moving elements in their posts drawing in reader responses or not? 
  • Find out what works for your intended audience and then, try it out!

Many notable social media management companies offer free plans for limited use.  See if those from companies like Hootsuite, Buffer, and Later have the features you want. Using the trial can help you decided how valuable the resource is to your writing.

I am currently using Publer to schedule my social media posts.  And have liked it’s features including:

• Scheduling a post to 5 social media accounts
• An easy-to-read dashboard and calendar
• The ease of using links, photos, and other media in a post.
• It also integrates with Canva – another great tool I like to use for working with pictures and for creating new content to share with readers.

Risk #4 – Write with a funnel

Indie writers who have books to sell have been using the tools found in various ‘funnel’ services for years.  I have been working with BookFunnel for 2 years and have been pleasantly surprised at how well the tools work for my horror writing. 

If you are not familiar with what these services do, here are some ways that I use the online platform:

Upload a short story as a giveaway.

It will enable the author to giveaway the book with a link that can perform certain actions like limiting the amount of downloads or to request an email in exchange for the book.

Email list building. 

In the past 2 years I have increased my email list to 1600 plus readers using this platform.  It allows authors to upload their books together to join their promotional giveaways, for example, so that readers are directed to all the authors’ sales or promos.  This is a powerful tool since it allows writers from different parts of the world to work together and share their lists.  The cross-promotion adds new readers to all of the writers’ lists.  This allows for exposure to potential new fans for your work and new author connections in the same type of writing.  

Send a protected advanced reader copy (ARC). 

Authors should be careful of sending their work to others for feedback, especially in the final editing stages.  It would be heart-breaking to spend years and financial resources on a book only to have it ripped into the online underworld of stream-for-free without your consent.  But how to writers protect their work while still building readership and getting valuable feedback? 

Using a funnel is one way to send work to a reader for free. 

Book Funnel has several options for sending a reader to your ARC, but the reader will read it in their app, keeping your book safe. As an author you can

Sell your book direct. 

Many of these services allow authors to sell their books directly to readers.  If you have an email list, you can sell the book in the same protected ways that you can send an ARC.  If your writing career could use some revitalizing, try these tools to share your work with readers.

Risk #5 – Update your Website

As a part of my new focus on horror writing, I soon realized that my readers were more likely to like either horror or sci-fi, but not both.  Not wanting to push away readers of either genre, I looked into updating my author website to incorporate clear elements of both types of writing.

My website had long been overdue for updates and had a non-functioning store. I worked with the amazing Lisa Norman on what ended up being 2 separate sites (one for sci-fi, KrisMaze.com, and one for horror and darker speculative fiction, KrissyKnoxx.com.) Working with a knowledgeable professional helped me create a clean, functional website that also acts as a store.  It has revitalized my vision of being a writer as I have a few books to upload onto my own sites as a result. 

Final Thoughts

Don’t be afraid to take risks in your writing career, dear writer.  It may be scary to write outside the genre or word count you usually do, but this may be a needed change to keep your writing fresh and interesting.  Keep learning craft and dig deep into the elements of story and quality writing.  Try new technology and tools that enable writers to connect with readers.  This writing journey is more like a roller coaster ride, with twists and turns.  Have fun and enjoy the ride!

Do you have an example of a big risk you took that paid off in your writing career?  What tips would you share with our readers about taking a risk in your writing? We’d love to hear from you!

About Kris

Kris Maze is an author, writing coach, and teacher. She has worked in education for many years and writes for various publications including Practical Advice for Teachers of Heritage Learners of Spanish and the award-winning blog Writers in the Storm where she is also a host. You can find her horror stories and keep up with her author events at her website.

A recovering grammarian and hopeless wanderer, Kris enjoys reading, playing violin and piano, and spending time outdoors.

And occasionally, she knits.

by Eldred Bird

When I first heard the term Chekhov’s Gun used in a writing class, I’ll admit I thought it was a Russian firearm. Turns out I was way off base. Chekhov’s Gun is actually a double-edged sword (pun intended). Before I explain, let’s define this writing term.

What is Chekhov’s Gun?

Chekhov’s Gun is shorthand for a concept introduced by nineteenth-century author and playwright Anton Chekhov. It’s best summed up in his own words:

“One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn’t going to go off. It’s wrong to make promises you don’t mean to keep.”

And:

“Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”

Basically, what he’s saying is cut anything from your writing that isn’t going to have an impact later in the story, leaving only those elements that are important to the narrative and will pay off at some point. There are limits to this, of course, so use good judgement.

The Edges of the Sword

So why do I say Chekhov’s Gun is a double-edged writing sword?  Because the concept works as both an editing tool and a plotting device. Let’s take a look.

The Editing Edge

Chekhov’s gun is a great lens to view our work through when it comes time to edit the first draft. We can use this handy tool to help determine what to keep and what to cut.

The first place to use the sword is scene description.

Look at each element described and ask yourself these questions:

• Does it move the story forward?
• Will it come into play later?
• Does it really add useful information to the scene or is it just window dressing?
• Is there a detail missing that will be important later?

I’m not saying cut everything to the bare bones. We still need to set the stage to create a sense of place, time, and mood, but often we (or at least I) tend to overshoot the target.

These same points also apply to character description.

When we list things off like eye and hair color, or specific articles of clothing, there should be a good reason we include those details.

The next place we need to use our blade is backstory.

This is usually where I end up making my biggest cuts. My stories are very character driven, so I like to get to know them on a deeper level. As a consequence, my first drafts are always packed with far more information about the character’s past than will ever come into play in the story. Here are some of the questions I ask when looking at backstory:

• Is the backstory detail there only for me (as the author) to get to know the character I’m writing better?
• Does the detail inform on how the character will react to a stimulus in the future?
• Does a future plot point rely on the detail?
• Is the detail something the reader can get from context or action rather than description?

Again, I’m not saying to cut everything that doesn’t relate to the plot. We still need to build characters readers can relate to or they won’t care what happens to them. Just be judicious with the information that’s not driving the plot.

The Plotting Edge

Plotting is where I believe Chekhov’s Gun really shines. It all comes down to the idea of planting an object or detail that will play an important part later in the story. Think of it as a way to plant seeds that will germinate later or foreshadow things to come.

Chekhov's Gun vs The MacGuffin

In some ways, Chekhov’s Gun may sound similar to the MacGuffin, but the two function in very different ways. The MacGuffin’s purpose is to drive the plot forward throughout the story, whereas Chekhov’s Gun is a specific element that comes into play in a specific future situation.

Think of the MacGuffin as the car the characters are riding in. Chekhov’s Gun would be the squeaky brakes the protagonist was supposed to get fixed. The payoff happens ten miles down the road when a pedestrian steps off the curb in front of the car and the brakes fail.

Examples

One of my favorite uses of Chekhov’s Gun as a plotting tool comes from the movie The Fifth Element. Near the beginning of the movie, the main character pockets a box of matches with only one match left. We never see the box again until near the end of the movie, where everything they’ve been through comes down to that one match working.

I’ve used this tool in my own writing as well. In the third James McCarthy book, Cold Karma, James adopts a stray dog. For several chapters, it seems the dog doesn’t really serve any purpose (my critique partners told me to get rid of him), but in the end he plays a pivotal role in the capture of the antagonist.

Some Final Thoughts

No matter which way you use Chekhov’s Gun, it’s a handy tool to keep in your bag of tricks. But just like any other writing tool, we must be careful how we wield it. It’s possible to go overboard and cut too much detail when editing through this lens.

It’s also possible to plant too many seeds and crowd the garden when using it as a plotting device. The more elements you slip in, the more threads you’ll have to tie up in the end. If you’re like me, you may lose track of some of those threads and end up with some extra editing to deal with.

In the end, it’s all about finding a balance for your story.

Do you have a favorite use of Chekhov’s gun in books or movies? Have you used it in your own work? Let us know in the comments!

About Eldred

Eldred Bird writes contemporary fiction, short stories, and personal essays. He has spent a great deal of time exploring the deserts, forests, and deep canyons inside his home state of Arizona. His James McCarthy adventures, Killing Karma, Catching Karma, and Cold Karma, reflect this love of the Grand Canyon State even as his character solves mysteries amidst danger. Eldred explores the boundaries of short fiction in his stories, The Waking Room, Treble in Paradise: A Tale of Sax and Violins, and The Smell of Fear.

When he’s not writing, Eldred spends time cycling, hiking, and juggling (yes, juggling…bowling balls and 21-inch knives).

His passion for photography allows him to record his travels. He can be found on Twitter or Facebook, or at his website.