Elmore Leonard

Elmore Leonard died this morning, which I mention because he was terrific writer and respect should be paid, because so much of what he said about writing was so damn smart, and because there were some things in his obituary that I didn’t know:

He’d sold his first story in 1951, but he didn’t become a bestseller until the 90s when he was in his sixties.

His first novel was rejected 84 times.

He wrote long hand on yellow legal pads from 10 to 6, trying to get three to five pages done.

In 2001, he wrote a piece for the NYT called “Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points, and Especially Hooptedoodle,” with this first line: “These are rules I’ve picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I’m writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what’s taking place in the story.” Although Leonard was never invisible–his voice was too strong–his prose was always sharp and clean, concentrating on the story and not the author. His rules are rules any author should live by, rules I endorse whole-heartedly and at length (my favorite is “Try to leave out the parts that people skip”). He was an amazing writer, and he leaves the world a much more interesting place because he wrote such good stories.

Elmore Leonard’s List:

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.