Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Leonard's train to Yuma departs

Elmore Leonard died. The best article about Leonard I’ve seen was from The Washington Post back in 2008. He seems like one of the few celebrities who didn’t act like one and would’ve been fun to hang out with.

 His 10 tips for 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.

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