Tag Archives: short story rules

Kurt Vonnegut’s eight rules for writing a short story

When it came to giving advice to writers, Kurt Vonnegut had some great stuff.  He famously warned people away from the use of semicolons by describing them “transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing.”

Eight years before his passing, Vonnegut published a collection of short stories titled “Bagombo Snuff Box.”  The book was made up of previously published short fiction from his early (and short) career from the 1950s writing for magazines.  These works did not appear in Vonnegut’s previous collection, “Welcome to the Monkey House.”

Continue reading