The point is, writing well, even an ordinary letter or a well-considered e-mail, demands the generosity of your time, effort, and thought. You have to care enough that it’s worth your energy, weighing that cost against the cost of not doing it.

Fetishism of famous writers, he suggested, occurs because “it’s such heavy-lifting to actually read books.”

fiction is melody, and journalism, new or old, is noise.42

he would rather you err on the side of caring passionately vs. writing eloquently:

Whether rigging or not, one’s self and the myriad aspects of oneself show up in one’s characters. The more you are able to encompass and give voice to those aspects, the larger you grow, and the better fiction writer you will be. You’ll meet yourself on the river, as it were.

Vonnegut’s seventh rule: “Pity the readers”:

Hence Vonnegut’s seventh rule: “Pity the readers”: Our audience requires us to be sympathetic and patient teachers, ever willing to simplify and clarify.37

“A story-teller must tell his story in such a way that the reader will not feel that his time has been wasted.”

Character and action impinge upon one another, in life as in fiction. A person’s inherent character shapes his or her choices. The opposite is also true: character rises out of choice and action. Interaction between a given personality and a situation of conflict that arises, provoking choice and action—consequently revealing, changing, or