10 Hacks for Applying Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Laws of Short Fiction to Your Short Stories Today
Every writer knows Vonnegut’s laws of short fiction, but not how to use them
Kurt Vonnegut’s eight laws of writing short fiction are famous. If you haven’t heard of them… well, you’ve probably heard them (or at least one or two) without realizing they were part of Vonnegut’s list.
All in all, Vonnegut’s laws are fairly self-explanatory in their meaning and intent, but they do not include any steps for implementing them to your short story writing and editing processes.
That’s why I am providing a series of hacks, tips, and tricks for applying Vonnegut’s guidance into your short story creation.
We’ll be going through the laws in backward order for reasons that will become obvious once we reach number one.
Law 8
“Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell 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.”
