Elmore Leonard's 10 + 1 Rules for Writers
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- Опубликовано: 20 сен 2024
- VelocityWriting.com - Lots of famous writers share their rules for writing, and Elmore Leonard’s list is one of the most interesting. Maybe because he was such an interesting writer.
Why did so many of his stories and novels become movies? Well, he created great characters and he had a real gift for writing dialog. His rules for writing are important.
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finally, a writer with some real advice
Someone once said...the best advice I received about writing was "Finish"
True. Most people like to think about writing a book. Some start, but few finish. Writing takes two main ingredients in my view--curiosity and persistence.
@@VelocityWriting Writing is hard work. Why so many are called and so few chosen.
i would say start...
Hemingway said ' Avoid exclamation points. It's like laughing at your own jokes.'
I love prologues. If done well, they create such anticipation and foreshadowing, pulling you straight into the narrative arc. But you have to relate to that way of thinking to enjoy them.
Such good advice. Loaded with common sense. Loved #11: "If it sounds like writing, re-write it."
Analogous to acting. In the movie "Marty" what struck me about Ernest Borgnine's performance in the butcher shop scene was that I felt I was seeing a butcher not an actor. As the film unfolded this impression was reinforced: I was watching a guy living day to day in the Bronx, not an actor playing a guy living in the Bronx.
If it looks like acting, cut the scene and shoot another take.
I really liked this! Make more please!
Some of these are great. I put down my 4th book by Greg Bear recently because I realized half the thick book was description of persons, places, objects, what was going on in people's heads and the previous 30 years of each person's life. In my mind I saw the stark difference between his bloated style and Asimov's more direct style. I wade through a Bear book but am on the edge of my seat (sorry, couldn't resist) with an Asimov book.
This is absolutelly brilliant advice. Especialy for novels. In picture books you will find a lot more exclamation marks and "suddenly" features quite a bit. But picture books are different than novels and they are meant to be read aloud. If you write for adults the advice above is fantastic. I never read any of his books but now I might because I agree with his rules for writers.
Now this is advice that I can really use and sink my teeth into. Direct and to the point, as all good advice tends to be.
I guess the most helpful and precise tip yet...thanks Elmore Leonard and Velocity Writing...
I can see Mark Twain's rather substantial eyebrows arching up. How could he have ever written about Tom & Huck & Jim without making dialect an essential part of the magic?
You are not wrong. Fortunately, Twain had a great ear and could write patois effectively. Sadly, most writers cannot do that and should avoid it.
He said avoid, NOT do not ever use. Use well and sparingly, that's all.
@@AnnaMaledonPictureBookAuthor Twain went far beyond sparing in his use of it - but as VelocityWriting pointed out above, Twain's rare mastery of dialect and accent meant he could get away with it. As you said, other writers would do well to use it sparingly.
My favorite rules. Especially the last one.
First off, thanks for this series on writers’ writing tips.
Second, with respect to Leonard’s 11th commandment, I disagree. He may be right if we’re talking about the mass public of today, but wrong if we’re talking about lit in general.
I’m thinking specifically of Eliot’s “Middlemarch.” It’s a masterpiece, and part of its beauty is in the writing, the beautifully turned phrases. Obviously Shakespeare would be another prime example, but that might be going back too far.
My two shillings’ worth, so to speak.
David Winet
Berkeley California
I don't think any knowledgeable person will disagree with you, David. In fact, Leonard was writing for the masses using a very visual style. That's one reason so many of his books were made into films. The other reason, of course, is that he created characters and situations that were interesting to his contemporary audience.
Yet, your point about Eliot and Shakespeare is well taken. They were supplying entertainment too but in the context of the sensibilities of their times. They were painting portraits in words, and many of today's writers are taking snapshots.
In my view, readers should be agnostic in their selections and embrace both high and low brow books. It's okay to read both. People can and should open themselves to the storytelling regardless of the time or place in history the story takes place. Alas, however, the literature of bygone days is an acquired taste. The masses have not been taught the difference between the good wine and the bad.
Another great video with priceless content. Thank you!
Love your commentary, love your voice. These are all great tips, and actually intuitive when you think about it...I must go back and read more Elmore, thanks d.l, love your channel...sub’d.
Great advice again. Don't you hate it when a room is described with all its contents? I want to read a story, not something that looks like an insurance claim. P.S. Any advice on question marks? You know, their proper use (?).
Question marks always go at the end of a question. That's all.
Absolutely, Robert B. Parker, in his Spenser series is a prime offender, describing clothing, face and body in detail. In Jesse Stone, not so bad. In Virgil Cole & Everett Hitch, not much at all.
Wordiness is a similar offence, Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum. I once translated some of Clancy into Hemingway's style and got half the words.
Strunk and White would have turned over in their graves.
Having said this, Clancy and Ludlum do not offend so much when listening to audiobooks. Probably because we are more tolerant of flabby speech than flab in the spoken word.
Parker's Spenser also offends also by its sexism and the racial banter between Spenser and Hawk, an African American. At least to this Canadian ear. But the stories themselves are enough to catch a big readership, including me.
2 years too late - but I think if there's any doubt in the usage of a question mark, it probably shouldn't be used.
Informative and helpful. Thank you.
Great tips, thanks!
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you, Maestro 🌹🌹🌹😎
Most of the latest writing rules have been contrived merely to meet the publishers' marketing requirements.Which urges serious writers to reconsider their cherished principles and "stoop" to those requirements, making their utmost to sacrifice as few principles as possible.
I'm sorry you are so angry about "rules." Many successful authors are asked about the reasons for their success, thus we see these lists. I particularly like Leonard's rules because they are so humorous. If you didn't think #10 "Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip" was hilarious, then perhaps you are over-medicated. Personally, I like these lists. I have read scores of them, and even adopted 2-3 rules from the hundreds offered. No one is required to adopt them all.
Great, thank you.
Charles Dickens sacrificed reams of paper describing Miss Havisham's parlor and JRR Tolkien spent four pages giving a detailed description and history of a valley. I know because I skipped over both those passages--there's just not enough time in the world.
Except those many of us who read FOR that kind of content. But I'm sure you know your market.
One of the great writers of the 20th century. Don't be fooled by the genres he inhabited. Westerns and crime. He also wrote Pagan Babies, a novel about the aftermath of the Rwanda genocide. The following paragraphs illustrate his style. And I confess, I have read almost everything he wrote. So his writing has guided me more than has the writing of Hemingway. Especially, the short paragraphs and the simple flow. Leonard also got his start by writing short stories, a great way to hone prose until it is lean and mean.
Pagan Babies
THE CHURCH HAD BECOME a tomb where forty-seven bodies turned to leather and stains had been lying on the concrete floor the past five years, though not lying where they had been shot with Kalashnikovs or hacked to death with machetes. The benches had been removed and the bodies reassembled: men, women and small children laid in rows of skulls and spines, femurs, fragments of cloth stuck to mummified remains, many of the adults missing feet, all missing bones that had been carried off by scavenging dogs.
Since the living would no longer enter the church, Fr. Terry Dunn heard confessions in the yard of the rectory, in the shade of old pines and silver eucalyptus trees.
“Bless me, Fatha, for I have sin. It has been two months from the last time I come to Confession. Since then I am fornicating with a woman from Gisenyi three times only and this is all I have done.”
They would seem to fill their mouths with the English words, pro-nounc-ing each one carefully, with an accent Terry believed was heard only in Africa. He gave fornicators ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys, murmured what passed for an absolution while the penitent said the Act of Contrition, and dismissed them with a reminder to love God and sin no more.
“Bless me, Fatha, for I have sin. Is a long time since I come here but is not my fault, you don’t have Confession always when you say. The sin I did, I stole a goat from close by Nyundo for my family to eat. My wife cook it en brochette and also in a stew with potatoes and peppers.”
“Last night at supper,” Terry said, “I told my housekeeper I’d enjoy goat stew a lot more if it wasn’t so goddamn bony.”
The goat thief said, “Excuse me, Fatha?”
“Those little sharp bones you get in your mouth,” Terry said, and gave the man ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys. He gave just about everyone ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys to say as their penance.
Some came seeking advice.
“Bless me, Fatha, I have not sin yet but I think of it. I see one of the men kill my family has come back. One of the Hutu Interahamwe militia, he come back from the Goma refugee camp and I like to kill him, but I don’t want to go to prison and I don’t want to go to Hell. Can you have God forgive me before I kill him?”
Terry said, “I don’t think He’ll go for it. The best you can do, report the guy to the conseiller at the sector office and promise to testify at the trial.”
The man who hadn’t killed anyone yet said, “Fatha, when is that happen? I read in Imvaho they have one hundred twenty-four thousand in prisons waiting for trials. In how many years will it be for this man that kill my family? Imvaho say two hundred years to try all of them.”
Terry said, “Is the guy bigger than you are?”
“No, he’s Hutu.”
“Walk up to the guy,” Terry said, “and hit him in the mouth as hard as you can, with a rock. You’ll feel better. Now make a good Act of Contrition for anything you might’ve done and forgot about.” Terry could offer temporary relief but nothing that would change their lives.
Yes, I agree that Leonard is vastly underrated as a writer because of the genres he chose. Nevertheless, he wrote about interesting characters in unique settings, in a highly visual way, and his part of the reason so many of his books and short stories became movies and TV series.
Thank you for mentioning "Pagan Babies." It was basically a crime story, but I think it is important that he used the dismal Rwanda situation as it existed in the late 1990's as a launch point. The novel was released in 2000. He demonstrated how we can use fiction to raise social consciousness.
@@VelocityWriting I subscribed because your posts address the most important function of a modern professional: clear communication that connects with the intended reader. A concept at the core of Stephen King's, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.
I write non-fiction professionally, mostly technical aspects of economic development and finance. What I have learned about writing I learned from authors of fiction and poetry. e. e. cummings is a model poet for brevity and impact.
You get my main purpose. I appreciate that. And thank you for subscribing.
Interestingly, I did not come to understand the importance of "communication that connects with the intended reader" from my fiction or nonfiction writing or from King's book. I learned it decades ago when I worked for a few years as a technical writer. I began to think of myself as a translator. I saw my job as translating complex ideas and procedures into language anyone could understand. In that sense, all writers are in the translation business. You understand that is important work.
@@VelocityWriting "..translating complex ideas and procedures into language anyone could understand." My job description too!
Avoiding words other than "said' after a piece of dialogue is good advice generally but sticking to that rule across the board without exception is more of a trademark than a necessity. Sometimes when a character says something it doesn't distract me a bit to be informed right up front whether she barked it or shrilled it or snapped, whined or growled it. That she "said" it tells me next to nothing.
The context should inform the reader how the words are spoken. Show don’t tell etc.
Yes. The great 19th century novelists hardly used said!
@@adamjensen9195 That rule takes out one hell of a lot of superb novels over the last 180 years. Knowing when to show and when to tell is the magic insight. But I recognise it is a bit different for genre fiction like westerns.
I love your tips and tricks. 🍇
Thank you! 😊
I've gotten trapped in a binge of videos about how authors right.
Number 1 thing that sticks out is how all these authors and their rules are shattered by the very next author and or I can think of a bunch of famous authors who throw these rules into the trash can.
You are not trapped. Learning is a good thing. Not all tips are useful to all people, so just use the ones that help you meet your goals.
No famous author "throws these rules into the trash can." They use the old rules that work for them (like they composed a sentence with a subject, verb, and object, for example). Then, they tend to create new rules for themselves, which they often promote to others as "the only way to do it."
Anarchy ("disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority" ) in writing is a lost cause. It disrespects readers, and that is the ultimate insult to literary endeavor.
Can you do a video on Stephen King?
I asked Leonard once about his publisher and he told me write well and they'll find you. I though that was the stupidest thing I ever heard.
With respect to you, Leonard was correct. Publishers actually bid against each other to get publishing rights for books by notably talented authors. Leonard was so good, the studios also bid on screen rights for many of his books and short stories.
If you write well and have a good literary agent, publishers will find you and compete to publish your book. Additional details here: tinyurl.com/4c6c6v5f
Perhaps you should have asked Leonard about his literary agent instead of his publisher. He had perhaps the best agent of his era, Andrew Wylie.
It's probably good advice for US american writers as their audience is more simple-minded and may not be able to enjoy well composed writing. In Europe people still enjoy literature that sounds like literature.
The US audience is more simple-minded??? I usually don't allow xenophobic comments, but this was funny. Thank you for giving us the gift of laughter.
Any examples?
Arrogant, even by German standards.
You mention who starred in all of Elmore Leonards adaptations but when you got to Jackie Brown you failed to mention the star and mentioned the director. It started Pam Grier. An African-American actress who is very popular in the 1970s.
I did not mention all of Leonard's adaptations. I did not mention "all" stars who appeared in his adaptations. For example, in the video, I mentioned no star for "Justified" either. This channel is about writing and this video was about Leonard.
VelocityWriting OK. You did mention Glenn Ford and Russell Crowe has stars though. “310 to Yuma “which is an excellent short story by the way. I enjoy the videos. Thanks a lot for responding. By the way how many pages is 5000 words? courier new 12 point
I'm glad you enjoy my writing videos. Thank you for watching them.
The word count question you ask is a good one, but also off-topic here. Please take a look at the pinned comment (very top of comments) I just added to this video which deals with word count: ruclips.net/video/2k4C7p0Oa1I/видео.html
I recently read Prousts Swanns Way and thoroughly disliked it. Not to crap on Proust, who is a genius artist, but his book is unfriendly towards readers, in a sense that is almost aggressive. Through that lense, I actually see how brilliant and direct this advice is. Leonard’s books are very trim, true, but they are memorable and enjoyable to read.
Yes, I share your views about Proust. Many feel the same way about the writings of James Joyce. Both were abstract in the same way as painters. They deliver an evocative emotional package without the structure we anticipate. Proust and Joyce wrote as Salvatore Dail paints, Leonard wrote in a sparse realistic style like an Edward Hopper painting.
@@VelocityWriting Interesting comparison. I like books trim and simple-ish, but I enjoy weird paintings. Now, I will be wondering how that works for other people and what are the percentages. That would be an interesting study to do.
Jeb! That exclamation point sure flopped, didn't it?
If you don't like reading dialect, forget about Faulkner altogether (Exclamation point ). See, I din't use it (an exclamation point)
Excellent comment!!!!!!
Wow the the last one has and irony of being invisible from the 10 rules but still with it .. like the concept of the it’s self .. the writer should be invisible ..
Not bad
🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾
Great video guys @ VelocityWriting.
I can think of a female writer that I enjoy but do skip looooong descriptions of clothing and furnishings.
Only one?