Vonnegut's guide to writing good

In the continuing volley of accolades, self-flagellation, and weeping that has followed the death of Kurt Vonnegut, I present, via Boing Boing, Vonnegut's guide to writing (from his collection Bagombo Snuff Box):

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.

I will definitely keep these pointers in mind, especially #6. Punish them! I'd like to think I made Thomas Friesen (hero of Shelf Monkey) go through hell.

Yes, you can write a book (or part of one)

In what can either be described as brilliance or the most insane literary project to date, the lovely people at De Montfort University have launched the first-ever novel in wiki form. That's right, it's a work in progress, and anyone can contribute.

What will the result be? A new Bonfire of the Vanities? Breakfast of Champions? Blood & Wine? And how can we put this on our literary CVs?

A Million Penguins - for anyone who's yearned to write a book, but not the whole damn thing.

Editing the classics - A Shelf Monkey prediction comes true!

As anyone who has read Shelf Monkey (or will read it, release date April 2007, get cracking on pre-ordering several copies for yourself), I love books. Thus, and unsurprisingly, it was with a heavy heart that I read here (via the wonderful literary blog Biology of the Worst Kind) that the publishing company of Weidenfeld & Nicolson is planning to re-release classic novels for the public. What's wrong that that? you ask. Well, for a start (actually, the whole problem), they've done market research which indicates that (as quoted in The Guardian) many readers are put off on reading the classics because of "daunting length and small print.

Boo-hoo, you say. But wait, the worst is yet to come! Their solution to this 'problem' (please note sarcastic tone in use of quote marks): editing their lengths. I mean, what could be simpler? Why read 400 pages, when you can read 200? Problem solved!

Here's the segment in its entirety:

"Despite the trend for new-look classics lists, no publisher has dared to meddle with the texts - until now. Weidenfeld & Nicolson is to launch a list of edited literary classics, called Compact Editions. It claims that market research shows many readers are put off by the "elitist" image of classics and by their daunting length and small print. So the Compact Editions - slogan "Great Books in Half the Time" - have been "sympathetically edited" down to fewer than 400 pages each. Weidenfeld insists that the novels retain the core plot, characters and historical background. The first six titles - Anna Karenina, Vanity Fair, David Copperfield, The Mill on the Floss, Moby-Dick and Wives and Daughters - are to be released in May and will doubtless be snapped up by students eager to cut down their reading time."

Attributed to Joel Rickett, The Guardian, January 20, 2007.

To say it better than I ever could:

"The justification for simplifying and eviscerating books, as well as for inventing category nonsenses such as teenage fiction, is that it's better for people to read those than to read nothing. I don't think so. A sympathetically edited Moby-Dick is nothing. At any rate, it isn't Moby-Dick. You can screw around with the novel to make a film or a play if you like, even to make a new novel of your own. It could be wonderful. But the book that Melville wrote remains intact. It's available to be read as it was written and as generations have read it. It was written the way it was for a reason. For Melville's reason. That's what a novelist does. It's what the publisher ought to publish. It's what a reader should take or leave. For Weidenfeld & Nicolson to offer cut-down versions is to disgrace publishing, to give up on writers and on the possibility of literature. Actually to give up on anything except making money."

Attributed to Jenny Diski, Biology of the Worst Sort, January 22, 2007.

Now what's truly weird about all this (and I admit no small amount of prescience) is that I jokingly predicted this in Shelf Monkey. At one point (no plot spoilers here), a character rants over the antagonist's plans to re-release classic novels in drastically edited form. I even use Moby Dick as an example, editing it to 100 pages, and the whale loses. Man, I am changing my name to Nostra-Damn!-us.

Join with me in weeping for our children.

As well, check out this disturbing piece by Thomas Washington (a high-school librarian) in The Washington Post. It turns out that editing books for length might be the only option to appeal to children with short attention spans.