How to Write With Style by Kurt Vonnegut
Submitted by Jakob on Sat, 2007-05-12 22:24.Recalling the story about Vonnegut's recent demise, I thought this article might be of interest to some Wordsy readers. A fiction writing friend of mine called it "insulting to writers", others say it's useful. Being a former full time writer, I find this article to be concise and useful.
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It feels very un-Vonnegut to spend his time on an essay that could have been written by an English grad student. Couldn't he at least snap it up a bit?
Plus, they did a study of E.B. White's work and found that he broke nearly every one of his own grammatical rules, and Vonnegut was even WORSE. I know, you've got to know the rule to break it, but anyone who's taught college freshmen has given up on these dogmas.
The way I see it, you should take all advice you can get, and then decide what you should or shouldn't heed. This article may very well be as bad as you say Richard, and a lot of it being common sense or just contrite clichés, but then a lot of people never seem to have enough common sense...
Good point. While I disagree with the Elements of Style section, I totally agree with the other points -I just thought it was stylistically less interesting than Vonn's other work.
Yes, I concur. Also, it is ironic how he doesn't seem to follow his own advice considering the way this article is written, but maybe that's a point in itself. :)
I know i'm late on this one.
I just want to say how much I enjoyed reading this....lots, lol
I agree with Richard, it doesnt read like the work of a master, but it did say a lot of things I believe in, its nice reading something I agree with for a change :)
Although i think Picaso type works have a place somewhere in the art of words too. ( Please dont ask me for an example right away, but I will fall over one some day.)