Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules

“Elmore Leonard's Ten Rules of Writing

1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said”…he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10. 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.”

The late Elmore Leonard was an outstanding crime novelist; one of the best in the genre. Consequently, anything he had to say on the subject of writing was taken seriously—perhaps too seriously. For example, his often-quoted "Ten Rules of Writing." I suspect Leonard promulgated these rules with tongue firmly planted in cheek and we should therefore take them with a grain of salt. Tongue in cheek? Grain of salt? Are those clichés to be avoided like those referenced in Rule 6? If you want to get nit-picky, how about Rule 9, "Don't go into great detail...." Do you need the adjective "great" to modify "detail"? Maybe, in this context. Maybe not.

I believe most of the rules are questionable. Rule 7: "Use regional dialect, patois. sparingly." Better rewrite "Huckleberry Finn" Mr. Clemens. Rule 8: "Avoid detailed descriptions of characters." Take that, Charles Dickens. Rule 10. "Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip." That's right. Just do the Cliff's Notes version, or better yet, the Classic Comics version with cool illustrations. On the other hand, perhaps just scan the cover art, read the jacket blurb and forget the book. It'll save you time and money.
However, I'm fond of Number 4...he said affectionately.

I'll concentrate on Numero Uno, since that's of primary importance in a Decalogue, and finish fittingly with the summa.
1. Never open a book with weather.

I suppose Leonard was thinking of Bulwer-Lytton and Snoopy's infamous "It was a dark and stormy night." Fair enough. But what about this?
"When Chili first came to Miami Beach twelve years ago they were having one of their off-and-on cold winters: thirty-four degrees the day he met Tommy Carlo for lunch at Vesuvio's on South Collins and had his leather jacket ripped off. One his wife had given him for Christmas a year ago, before they moved down there."
Elmore Leonard, Get Shorty
Did Leonard violate his own First Commandment in the opening paragraph of one of his best novels? Granted, the reference to a day in Miami Beach that was so cold a hoodlum got his best leather jacket ripped off is a clever use of weather, but literally speaking it's still opening a book with weather. If you're going to have rules, Valjean, you had better follow them to the letter, said Inspector Javert officiously.

How about this?
"It was the rainy season in Bangkok. The air was saturated with a continuous fine drizzle, and often drops of rain would dance in a brilliant ray of sunlight. Rifts of blue were always visible here and there; and even when the clouds clustered most thickly round the sun, the sky at their circumference was dazzlingly blue. Before an approaching squall, it would turn ominously dark and threatening. A foreboding shade would shroud the predominantly green, low-roofed city dotted with palms."
Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn

Mishima violated the hell out of Leonard's First Commandment, and ran afoul of 9 & 10, too. So I guess, according to Leonard's rules, we should consign all literature that uses "great" descriptive detail to set the mood and tone for a particular time and place to the literary scrap heap. And, you crime writers who enjoy quoting Leonard's rules ad nauseum, that would include Conan Doyle's fog-shrouded descriptions of Sherlock Holmes's Victorian London and Raymond Chandler's moody, atmospheric descriptions of pre-World War II Los Angeles.

Now let's cut to the summa: "If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it" What does "writing" sound like? Damned if I know, but here's a guess. "If it sounds like someone else's writing, I rewrite it." I can't say for sure that's what Leonard meant, but I think it's a reasonable educated guess.
A passage from Woody Allen's Comedy/Fantasy "Midnight in Paris" might shed some light on what Elmore Leonard was doing with his Ten Rules. In the movie, a contemporary wannabe novelist travels back in time to 1920s Paris, where he meets a host of creative luminaries, including his idol, Ernest Hemingway. In the scene, Gil, the wannabe novelist, asks Hemingway to read his manuscript.
GIL
Would you do me the biggest favor
in the world - I can't even ask •••
HEMINGWAY
What?
GIL
Would you read it?
HEMINGWAY
Your novel?
GIL
It's only about four hundred pages -
if you could just give me your
opinion.
HEMINGWAY
My opinion is I hate it.
GIL
You do?
HEMINGWAY
If it's bad I'll hate it because I hate bad writing and if it's good
I'll be envious and hate it all the more. You don't want the opinion of another writer.

The Hemingway character admits that writers are competitive. Hemingway had many imitators, good, bad and indifferent. Should writers follow Elmore Leonard's rules? Go ahead, be my guest. My prediction for your writing career? At best, you'll be a successful hack who imitates Leonard, just like all the hacks, good, bad and indifferent, who imitated Hemingway. That brings me to my summa, my one and only rule for writers.

Be yourself.