Kurt Vonnegut
Eight rules for writing fiction:

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. Now 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.

-- Vonnegut, Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons 1999), 9-10.

Good YouTube video. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eys0UEOqcQ8

78

(6 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Which of these would you chose to tape to your writing spot, if you could only pick one?

Writing may need solitude to be accomplished, but it need not be a solitary pursuit. Be inspired by others. Write these bits of wisdom on post-it notes and stick them to your computer monitor. Print them out and tack them to the wall over your desk. Always remind yourself You Are Not Alone.


You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
—Jack London

I write for the same reason I breathe—because if I didn't, I would die.
—Isaac Asimov

Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.
—Barbara Kingsolver

I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like a child stringing beads in kindergarten - happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another.
—Brenda Ueland

Being a good writer is 3% talent, 97% not being distracted by the Internet.   Hahahaha!  I love that one!
—Anonymous

One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you're maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones.
—Stephen King

Everything that doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. And later on you can use it in some story.
—Tapani Bagge

If you’re going to be a writer, the first essential is just to write. Do not wait for an idea. Start writing something and the ideas will come. You have to turn the faucet on before the water starts to flow.
—Louis L’Amour

I think the first duty of all art, including fiction of any kind, is to entertain. That is to say, to hold interest. No matter how worthy the message of something , if it's dull, you're just not communicating.
—Poul Anderson

No one can arrive from being talented alone. God gives talent, work transforms talent into genius.  Good one!
—Anna Pavlova

When I examine myself and my methods of thought I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing knowledge.
—Albert Einstein

I saw the angel in the marble and carved to set him free.
—Michelangelo

Inspiration is the act of drawing a chair up to the writing desk.
—anonymous

To write is human, to edit is divine.
—Stephen King

Nora Roberts says ‘you can fix anything but a blank page’ and that’s absolutely true. If you spend a day writing crap, you can fix it. If you spend a day not writing, you’ve got nothing.   Awesome!
—Eve Ackerman

Either marry your work (take it seriously and do it every day) or date it (write only when you feel like it), but know which you are doing and the repercussions of both.
—unknown

I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork.   Hahhahahahhaa!
—Peter De Vries

Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.
—David Sedaris, interview in Louisville Courier-Journal, June 5, 2005  I would have changed peope to your characters.

You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through.
—Rosalynn Carter (1927 - )

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.
—Kurt Vonnegut

Don't explain why it works; explain how you use it.
—Steven Brust

Kingdoms need their castles, just as dragons mighty scales.
Without a quest or vision there's no magic in the tales.
I savor deeds of wonder told in prose or told in rhyme.
May I never grow too old to treasure 'once upon a time'.
—unknown

I grabbed this from the old TNBW forums and had to share:

Here are this year's winners of the Bulwer-Lytton contest, (aka "It Was a dark and Stormy Night" Contest) run by the English Department
of San Jose State University, wherein one writes only the first line of a bad
novel.

The goal of this contest is to write the best BAD opening sentence for a novel.


Winners in reverse:


10. As a scientist, Throckmorton knew that if he were ever to break wind in the echo chamber, he would never hear the end of it.

9. Just beyond the Narrows , the river widens.

8. With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a tanned
unblemished oval face framed with lustrous thick brown hair, deep
azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, perfect teeth that vied
for competition, and a small straight nose, Marilee had a beauty that
defied description.

7. Andre, a simple peasant, had only one thing on his mind as he crept along the East wall: "Andre creep... Andre
creep...Andre creep."

6. Stanislaus Smedley, a man always on the cutting edge of narcissism, was about to give his body and soul to a
back alley sex-change surgeon to become the woman he loved..

5. Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not keep her from
eking out a living at a local pet store.

4. Stanley looked quite bored and somewhat detached, but then penguins
often do.

3. Like an over-ripe beefsteak tomato rimmed with cottage cheese, the corpulent remains of Santa Claus lay dead on the
hotel floor.

2. Mike Hardware was the kind of private eye who didn't know the meaning of the word "fear"'; a man who could laugh in
the face of danger and spit in the eye of death -- in short, a moron
with suicidal tendencies.

AND THE WINNER IS...

1. The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness, crept along the
greensward, and, with sickly fingers, pushed through the castle window,
revealing the pillaged princess, hand at throat, crown asunder, gaping
in frenzied horror at the sated, sodden amphibian lying beside her,
disbelieving the magnitude of the frog's deception, screaming madly,
"You lied!"

As topic.  Do the old forums still exist in any form? I had some great stuff there.

81

(4 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Thanks you, Norm d'Plume and Elisheva Free.  I enjoyed your thoughts. 

PunBB bbcode test

82

(4 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Hello all.

I have recently returned to TNBW. I was looking over my old content and re-discovered a Guild Wars 2 short story I wrote called "The Price of Nightmares." You don't need to have played the game to enjoy the story.

I can really recommend this for some fast, good credit and a very touching, enjoyable read.  Consider it an introduction to my writing.

Please have a look:

http://www.thenextbigwriter.com/posting … ory.--4304

Enjoy!

83

(0 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Are you ready to have your mind blown? No, seriously, this will make you doubt we live in a logical, rational world.

Ready? (I suggest you tie something around your head. Messy.)

J.R.R.Tolkien died in 1973. Reverse those numbers, and you get 3791.

Look familiar?

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne

Yeah.

PunBB bbcode test

84

(10 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Basic)

Vern!

You have an avatar!

Thanks all.  I was actually wondering is there was a section in the forums for editors. 

If there isn't, there should be.

85

(10 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Basic)

Is there a section in the forums, either here or in the premiums, for finding an editor?

Thanks!