Inspired by Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing, The Guardian, a British newspaper asked authors for their personal dos and don'ts for aspiring authors. I'm posting's Leonard's list below and will highlights some of the others in the days ahead. I'm also going to ask some of my fellow authors for their list, so check back and see what they have to say!
Elmore
Leonard: Using adverbs is a mortal sin
1 Never open a book with weather. If it's only to create atmosphere,
and not a character's reaction to the weather, you don't want to go on too
long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are
exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways than an Eskimo
to describe ice and snow in his book Arctic
Dreams, you can do all the weather reporting you want.
2 Avoid prologues: they can be annoying, especially a prologue following
an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily
found in non-fiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in
anywhere you want. There is a prologue in John Steinbeck's Sweet
Thursday, but it's OK because a character in the book makes the
point of what my rules are all about. He says: "I like a lot of talk in a
book and I don't like to have nobody tell me what the guy that's talking looks
like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks."
3 Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking
his nose in. But "said" is far less intrusive than
"grumbled", "gasped", "cautioned",
"lied". I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with
"she asseverated" and had to stop reading and go to the dictionary.
4 Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said" ... he
admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal
sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts
and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my
books tell how she used to write historical romances "full of rape
and adverbs".
5 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 knack of
playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the
handful.
6 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" tend to exercise less control in the
application of exclamation points.
7 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 stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavour of
Wyoming voices in her book of short stories Close
Range.
8 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 her hat and put it on the table." That's the only reference to a
physical description in the story.
9 Don't go into great detail describing places and things, unless
you're Margaret Atwood and can
paint scenes with language. You don't want descriptions that bring the action,
the flow of the story, to a standstill.
10 Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. Think of
what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too
many words in them.
My most important
rule is one that sums up the other ten: if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Hmmmm, Mr. Leonard sounds like a tough editor. What do you think?
My advice? Keep writing! (she said with an exclamation point)
~ Stephanie
Hmmmm, Mr. Leonard sounds like a tough editor. What do you think?
My advice? Keep writing! (she said with an exclamation point)
~ Stephanie
