Keep your exclamation points under control! And other lessons from the late, great master of modern crime fiction.
Anyone who has ever picked up a book by Elmore Leonard knows that putting the book down is often harder than just finishing the damn thing. Once you get going and feel the high of reading a Leonard story, eating, sleeping or even having a conversation with a friend or spouse can’t compete.
The recently deceased author of 45 novels including Get Shorty, Hombre, Swag,Raylan, and Glitz (he died at work on his 46th), was reluctant to write about his own writing. But back in 2001 the New York Times convinced him to make a list of his ten writing rules.
Leonard introduced these rules as tips he “picked up along the way” whose purpose was to help him “remain invisible” in his own writing. Continue reading “Elmore Leonard’s Rules for Writing”