You do not have to be a “writer” or an “aspiring novelist” to want to write a short story. For many people, short story writing is relaxing – it is fun, therapeutic, and enjoyable. Short story writing can be a great creative outlet during your free time, and it can be a wonderful hobby. At the same time, however, it is not much fun to write short stories if no one will read them!

Kurt Vonnegut was one of the masters of modern American literature. From the late 1940s until his death in the late 2000s, Vonnegut wrote critically acclaimed and highly-regarded short stories, novels, and essays. At one point during Vonnegut’s writing journey, he compiled his list of “rules” for short story writing. The next few paragraphs summarize these ideas.

Vonnegut began his rules focused on what you should do for the reader – firstly, that you should make sure the reader won’t leave your story feeling like they wasted their time, and secondly that you should give the reader at least one character they can root for. From here, Vonnegut stuck with characters next, saying that each of your characters should want something – even if this “something” is insignificant – and then he said that every sentence should either reveal character or advance action. Vonnegut next encouraged writers to make awful things happen to their characters, no matter how sweet and kind these characters are. By doing this, you allow the reader to see what the characters are made of. Vonnegut’s next pieces of advice were as follows: start as close to the end as possible, and write to please just one person. You can understand this last one by realizing that if you write for one person, and that one person loves it, then every other person who has the same tastes as your “one person” will certainly love it also.

Vonnegut closes his rules by telling writers to give as much information as you can, as quickly as you can. “To heck with suspense,” he said. According to him, the reader should have a complete understanding of what is going on.

Of course, Vonnegut allowed that it is entirely possible for someone to break every one of these rules and still write great short stories. But you could sure do a lot worse than Kurt Vonnegut if you are going to find a writer to take advice from for writing short stories.