It’s a Tough Gig, Telling the Truth

It's a Tough Gig, Telling the Truth
You may feel sometimes that you are living in a society of lemmings, heading straight for the cliff at full speed. And many are. But always bear in mind that you doing what you are doing does count. You are an example. What you do does matter. Some people are aware enough to observe what you are doing and will change as a result of it.

Happiness

Happiness
Do the best you can at improving yourself to be the person you like best. You’ll never be without a friend if you are great company to be with.

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut Explains The Structure Of Stories

Kurt Vonnegut At Typewriter

Writers, here’s a little fun Thursday lunchtime activity for you. Think about the story you’re currently working on/avoiding. What shape does it take? Get a pen and some paper and trace it out. On the axis of good fortune versus ill fortune, where do your characters tend to fall?

Kurt Vonnegut was born 99 years ago today, so it’s high time we revisit one of his best craft lectures. In it, he breaks down his taxonomy of storytelling. But none of this “beginning → rising action → climax → falling action → resolution” crap that we learn in middle school. He begins: “Stories have very simple shapes, ones that computers can understand.” And then he goes on to do a little literary stand-up comedy, tracing the story arc of HamletThe Metamorphosis, and even Cinderella. Not by plot, but by the feelings of the characters we follow. For Kurt Vonnegut, the true movement of a story lays in a character’s happiness.

If you have 17 minutes to spare today, I recommend you give it a watch and maybe plot your own happiness, too. In fact, tag yourself. (We’re Kafka’s cockroach.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3c1h8v2ZQ