Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules for Writing
New broke this morning of Elmore Leonard's passing, at age 87, after a few weeks recovering from a stroke. I have to admit as someone who's new to the world of crime fiction, I've never read any of his work. I am almost ashamed to admit it, reading all the great stuff people are saying this morning. But I've long known his name, since my dad has been an avid crime reader since long before I was born.
And his 10 Rules for Writing sound quite similar to Stephen King's basic guidelines. So much so, I'm thinking he drew a lot of inspiration from them when crafting his own.
I'll pick up some Leonard very soon. In the meantime, I'm enjoying these pithy reminders. (The first one, I'm definitely guilty!)
- Never open a book with weather.
- Avoid prologues.
- Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
- Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said”…he admonished gravely.
- Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
- Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
- Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
- Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
- Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
- Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
* Excerpted from the New York Times article, “Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle”