10 rules for good writing, by Elmore Leonard.

[aragarna]

Elmore Leonard passed away yesterday. I saw this bit today (just stole it from Jim Campolongo on twitter.) What do you great authors think about this ? :-)

What’s Leonard’s secret to being both popular and respectable? Perhaps you’ll find some clues in his 10 tricks for good 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.

Excerpted from the New York Times article, “Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle”
http://www.writingclasses.com/InformationPages/index.php/PageID/304

Comments

[angelita26]

I had the great pleasure of seeing Elmore Leonard talk about his work, and Justified in particular because it was a panel at the Paley Center about Justified (with Tim Olyphant and Graham Yost). He was definitely a unique writer, and though I haven't read many of his works, I have a couple on my Kindle that I should get to reading.

I'm not a big fan of his rules - mostly because I am guilty of almost all of them. I do try to leave out parts in my own writing that I skip in others' writings :-D

[aragarna.livejournal.com]

I found #3, about the use of "say" interesting because I remember mention of this in English class, where we had to translate texts from English to French. I remember the teacher explaining that in English litterature, most of the time, writers will just use "say", while in French, we have dozens of words and we rarely use "dire" in a dialogue. The point was that we had to be creative, but I found interesting the differences of styles between both languages, and I think that's also something I feel when I read fanfics in English.

[joy2190.livejournal.com]

I think I break all those rules! Could explain why I am so frustrated by my own writing!

[aragarna.livejournal.com]

LOL well, to each our own style. ;-)