Rule 9 of Elmore Leonard’s 10 Writing Tips
Don’t go into great detail describing places and things. Unless you’re Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even…
Love, Laugh, and Happiness
Don’t go into great detail describing places and things. Unless you’re Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even…
Avoid detailed descriptions of characters. Which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway’s ”Hills Like White Elephants” what do the ”American and the girl with him” look like? ”She had taken off…
Elmore Leonard’s 7th Rule of Writing Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly. Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won’t be able to…
Elmore Leonard’s 6th Rule for Writing Never use the words ”suddenly” or ”all hell broke loose.” This rule doesn’t require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use ”suddenly”…
Elmore Leonard’s 5th Rule for Writing Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the…
Elmore Leonard’s 4th Rule of Writing Never use an adverb to modify the verb ”said” . . . . . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way…
Elmore Leonard’s Rule #3 on Writing Never use a verb other than ”said” to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking…
2. Avoid prologues. They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel…
“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…
If you’re like me, you understand writers have to write. I’m always trying to learn from the best. In this short YouTube video, Quentin Tarantino shares how he started writing…