"I think being a woman is like being Irish." — Iris Murdoch

I found this advice on writing from Kurt Vonnegut.  It's been in a bunch of blogs already, but I don't want to forget or lose it.  It's about short stories, but I think it fits stories in general.  Novels aren't usually a set of short stories, but you can look at each chapter in this way -- if you lose a reader with a weak chapter, you're not going to get her back with a great following chapter that she never reads.

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 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.