Kurt Vonnegut's 8 Tips on How to Write a Great Story

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

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

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

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

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

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.

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.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell 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.

“There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.” - Hunter S. Thompson

What the hell film is this from?

Been doing my head in all day.

“That' boy’s alive. I can feel it in my bones.”

Or words to that effect.

The Zavikon Islands

The island on the left is in Canada, the one on the right is in the United States. the smaller island contains the ‘backyard’ of the house on the larger island.

The result is the shortest international bridge in the world.