I’ve always loved Elmore Leonard. He writes clean and tight page-turners. This is an excerpt from the article he published in the New York Times in July, 2001, titled: WRITERS ON WRITING; Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle.

Elmore Leonard’s top tips for writers:

1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said.”
5. Keep your exclamation points under control.
6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

Have you seen any of these rules broken lately? I have. In my own writing, no less. See?

Prologue:
It was a bright, sunny day.

Ten Minute Later:
“Oh, my!” she hissed loudly. Was that thunder? Suddenly all hell was breaking loose! She flung her reddish blonde strawberry flaxen hair over her delicate pale shoulder that was slightly visible through her sheer blouse. “Like, I can’t believe some skanky whore stole my bumbershoot! I’m going to need it like for sure today!” she said naughtily and spicily.
Suddenly the shiny, slick, shiny, wet, smoth, slippery cement under the vulcanized rubber of her sports mobile was getting slippery. Life was a bitch when your red Ferrari with the creamy, smooth, leather seats was a convertible and you lived in the wet, humid, soggy city of a northwestern town on a really high mountain submerged in constant precipitation.

:badgirl:
At least I admit it. What about you?

(Click here for the rest of the New York Times article.)