Kurt Vonnegut said, "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."

For the longest time I understood this quote wrong. I thought he meant to explain EVERYTHING and give it to the reader in such a way that they won’t have to think.

I was wrong.

What Vonnegut meant was make it crystal clear for them to understand your story, so they know whom to love and whom to hate.

And what exactly is story?

Story is conflict.

I’m re-reading A Game of Thrones at the moment (and rewatching the show) to brush up my skills on conflict. And if you open up any chapter of that book, there are two characters in every chapter who are in conflict.

Every chapter. No break. No time to breathe. That’s why it’s impossible to put it down.

So do the same with your writing. Make sure not only for your overall book the readers are in clear understanding of who the Hero is (whom to love) and who the Villain is (whom to hate) and what their conflict is (what to root for), but also for every chapter you have a mini Hero and a mini Villain locked in a mini conflict.

Gif by Alex Grigg