'Just use your own voice'

 

“I'mnot aware of a cadence when writing, but I hear it after. I write in longhand,and that helps. You're closer to it, and you have to cross things out. You puta line through it, but it's still there. You might need it. When you erase aline on a computer, it's gone forever.” – Elmore Leonard

I’ve written about Leonard in the past, but on this date of his birth (inLouisiana in 1925) I couldn’t resist reminiscing again about one ofAmerica’s greatest writers of “Realism” in the past century. 

 

A novelist, short story writer, andscreenwriter, Leonard’s earliest works were Westerns (3:10 to Yuma and Hombre,for example), but he went on to specialize in crime fiction and suspensethrillers.  Many of his books have beenadapted into movies and TV shows; movies like Out of Sight and The GoldCoast, and mega-hit TV series like Justifiedand Get Shorty (also made into amovie).

 

To call Leonard’s writing “gritty,”might be an understatement, but regardless of how you classify it heshares a segment of America’s culture and dialogue that few other writers havebeen able to match.  To get a sense ofhow he developed his works, look at “Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing” (widelyavailable on the Internet).   Perhaps hismost telling rule: “If it sounds like writing . . . rewrite it.”

  

“Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presumehow to tell anybody how to write,” he said shortly before his death in2013.  “I think the best advice I give isto try not to write. Try not to overwrite, try not to make it sound too good.Just use your own voice. Use your own style of putting it down.”

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