Vonnegut+on+Writing

Writing
In his book //Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction//, Vonnegut listed eight rules for writing a [|short story]:

Vonnegut qualifies the list by adding that [|Flannery O'Connor] broke all these rules except the first, and that great writers tend to do that. **
 * 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.

In Chapter 18 of his book //Palm Sunday//, "The Sexual Revolution", Vonnegut grades his own works. He states that the grades "do not place me in literary history" and that he is comparing "myself with myself." The grades are as follows:
 * // [|Player Piano] // : B
 * // [|The Sirens of Titan] // : A
 * // [|Mother Night] // : A
 * // [|Cat's Cradle] // : A-plus
 * // [|God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater] // : A
 * // [|Slaughterhouse-Five] // : A-plus
 * // [|Welcome to the Monkey House] // : B-minus
 * // [|Happy Birthday, Wanda June] // : D
 * // [|Breakfast of Champions] // : C
 * // [|Slapstick] // : D
 * // [|Jailbird] // : A
 * // [|Palm Sunday] // : C

The last lines that Vonnegut wrote, in his last book, go thus: