Writing Tip Wednesday: Elmore Leonard’s Rules on Writing

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In last week’s post on Stephen King’s writing tips, I mentioned fiction author Elmore Leonard. Leonard was a prolific genre writer, including crime fiction, and was highly regarded as an expert in writing dialogue. He gave some great advice on writing technique. Here’s a summary of his tips.

Never open a book by describing the weather.

As we talked about last week, you need to hook the reader with a great opening. See last week’s blog post here for a couple of examples. Starting with the weather is boring and doesn’t help to hook the reader (unless you’re describing something like a horrible storm where people are struggling to survive).

Avoid prologues.

I don’t ascribe to this rule 100%. I think that if the prologue is short and done well, it can serve to hook the reader into the main feast of the book while setting the stage for the story. So take this rule as you like.

Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.

Leonard’s belief was that the reader almost always skips over the verb used to describe dialogue. I largely agree with this rule and follow it in my own writing.

Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said,” e.g., he admonished gravely.

We talked about this last week, too, so I’ll be brief here. You can show the reader what you mean by description rather than using adverbs. Using adverbs is more “telling” and the writer should show rather than tell.

E.g. “…she said angrily.” >> becomes “…she said as she threw her pen on the table.” OR “…she said as she gnashed her teeth.”

Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.

Work the emotion into your writing. Use description and body language to describe excitement, etc. instead of exclamation points. Many authors are afraid that the reader won’t understand what they’re conveying, so they overdo the language by using things like exclamation points. Don’t worry, the reader will get it if you set the scene well.

Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”

In other words, don’t use tropes or cliches. SHOW all hell breaking loose (e.g. tables overturned, blood splatter on the walls, crowds running straight for the door, etc.).

Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.

Here’s what he means. Some authors write out the dialogue exactly as it’s spoken, e.g. writing “aboot” instead of “about” because that is how the character would pronounce the term.

I personally don’t have a problem with an author doing this as long as I can understand what’s being said. I like it sometimes because I may not be able to conjure in my head, e.g. what a Glasgow accent or a South African accent sounds like. Too much of it slows the reader down, however, and in genre fiction you want a fast-paced story so the reader keeps reading and buys more of your books! So take this rule as you like.

Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

Readers prefer different things. Some readers prefer detailed descriptions of characters; others don’t. This is more of a personal preference, although in genre fiction too much description prevents the action from moving along (which is what the writer wants, i.e., the writer wants the reader to keep reading to see what happens next). I’m with Leonard on this one. I personally like character descriptions but I don’t like it when the author goes overboard (I also don’t like it when the author goes into great detail about what characters are wearing unless it’s essential for the plot).

Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.

For the same reasons as stated above.

Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

As Stephen King says, leave out the boring parts. Don’t feel compelled to describe mundane activities, e.g. “The phone rang. She picked the phone up and put the receiver to her ear.”

The reader knows the character who answers the phone will put it to her ear. There’s no need to state the obvious.

Hope that helps! Authors, let me know your writing pet peeves in the comments!

Excerpted from the New York Times article, “Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle.”