What Screenwriters Can Steal from Vonnegut’s 8 Fiction Tips

Happy Thursday!

As my father said to me on the phone earlier this week, “I’m busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.”

We had a dramatic and unexpected death in the family last week, which is why you did not receive an article. There's too much to say, so we're just gonna breeze on past this for now.

Silver linings: I’m feeling really good about the work I’m still doing on my Rom Com right now. My goal is to have a table read the first week of November and take it out officially at the top of 2027.

I had been struggling with it the few weeks prior and was getting frustrated, but all that effort has paved the way for me to have fun cleaning up and building in emotional layers and little games.

I can’t believe I actually thought at one point this year that I was going to be able to finish at least 3 features. HA! But, if I only knock out one feature per year—done and proud of!—while still running everything else in my life, I won’t be mad about it.

Beyond that, several of my clients have had high-quality wins lately which ignites an absolute blaze of warmth all the way down to the deepest darkest reaches of my soul.

Can you believe there are only 84 days left in 2026!?! Are you where you want to be with your writing? If you’re stuck on your script or want support with your next rewrite, let’s talk. I’d love to hear what you’re working on!

Book a free 45-minute Zoom consult. No prep required, and you don’t need a finished script. I only discuss my services if you ask.

Anyways, on with the show—

Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 tips for writing fiction are applicable across mediums.

You’ve probably encountered some version of them before. They’re short, blunt, and absolutely full of personality. They are reprinted here word for word, with some commentary here and there on putting them to work in a screenplay.

Enjoy!

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

A screenplay (and eventually a film or a show) asks you to spend one of the most valuable and non-renewable commodities you have: time.

You must, above all, especially in today’s competitive climate, consider: Is this story worth the reader’s time?

First, of course, you should consider this from the macro - is this story itself worth anyone’s time? Then drill down - is this scene, this moment, etc. worth someone’s time? What does the audience get from it? If the answer is mostly just information they’ll need later, how could that information arrive through something worth enjoying now?

I always come back to this scene in Adaptation (Charlie Kaufman is just chef’s kiss).

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

That doesn’t require a morally spotless protagonist. Just give us access to something recognizably human: embarrassment, longing, loyalty, the struggle to somehow earn your father’s approval. Someone we can connect with.

A small, specific vulnerability can do more than a whole page explaining why someone deserves our sympathy. Let us see what matters to them before you ask us to care whether they lose it.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

Even the person with three lines should have a reason to be in the room beyond helping your protagonist get through the plot.

Maybe the receptionist wants the conversation over before lunch. Maybe the friend offering advice wants to feel needed. Maybe the person apologizing wants forgiveness without having to change.

To dig deeper into what drives those wants, try my Why Web character-motivation exercise.

If you’re feeling particularly anal about this, you can make a spreadsheet (I love spreadsheets) of each person’s wants in every scene and check them all off.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.

Enough said. Be ruthless with this rule. Absolutely ruthless.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

Oftentimes we think we need far more lead-up than we actually do. It’s much more interesting (and considerate of your audience’s time!) to start in the middle of the action.

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.

You must be a cruel little god. It can be hard to do, but your story will be the better for it.

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.

Or Pneumonic Plague?

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 agree on a slant—

Where I agree: if the only reason your story is interesting is due to withheld information, you don’t have a very interesting story. Vagueness can feel cool, but it’s a poor man’s cool. Also, we need to be clear about where we are in a story, what characters’ goals are (even if they’re not outright stated), stakes, etc.

For instance: You can keep the killer’s identity secret while making the detective’s goal and danger clear. Suspense can grow because we know something awful might happen. If we’re still trying to work out who these people are and why they’re arguing, the tension may never reach us.

Where I’d qualify this: I also love Andrew Stanton’s notion to provide “2+2” rather than “4.” Give us enough information to put things together ourselves.

I think many fun and well-written stories effectively operate as a puzzle. What’s going to happen next!? Subverting expectations is a major factor in novelty and therefore excitement! If I know exactly what’s going to happen, it can take the fun out of the whole experience.

So: make the situation clear. Leave room for discovery.

A small assignment

Pick one scene that feels flat or stuck. Write down what each person wants, what makes getting it difficult, and what changes by the end.

Then revise that scene.

Don’t turn these eight tips into eight new reasons to avoid opening your script!!! Try one. See what happens.

And if you’re still having trouble figuring out what’s getting in the way, I’d love to talk about it.

Book a free consult.

Source: Kurt Vonnegut’s tips for writing fiction, reproduced by the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library, attributed there to the preface of Bagombo Snuff Box.