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I once saw Dizzy Gillespie at a live show, and it made me want to go home immediately and start writing.

Elmore Leonard

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Elmore Leonard
Age: 87 †
Born: 1925
Born: October 11
Died: 2013
Died: August 20
Author
Film Producer
Novelist
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
New Orleans
Louisiana
Dutch Leonard
Elmore John Leonard Jr.
Show
Shows
Home
Live
Gillespie
Writing
Dizzy
Made
Immediately
Saws
Start

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My purpose is to entertain and please myself. I feel that if I am entertained, then there will be enough other readers who will be entertained, too.
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I won't read a book that starts with a description of the weather. I don't read books over 300 pages, though I'll make an exception for Don Delillo.
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There's nothing like work to take your mind off your worries.
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What do you tell a man with two black eyes? Nothing, he's already been told twice.
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I left advertising as fast as I could in 1961. And I haven't ever thought about going back.
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At the time I begin writing a novel, the last thing I want to do is follow a plot outline. To know too much at the start takes the pleasure out of discovering what the book is about.
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These are rules I've picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I'm writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what's taking place in the story.
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I have fun writing. I don't make it a chore. I don't have to struggle with it.
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If you take a few days to write an outline, you're just making up scenes that you think will work, that you think will be interesting. But as you write it, other ideas occur - better ideas that have to do with what you're writing.
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Not dreams but night changes, not destiny but path changes, always keep your hopes alive, luck may or may not change, but time definitely chages.
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My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
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I want the reader to know what's going on. So there's never a mystery in my books.
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If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can't allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.
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I try to leave out the parts readers skip.
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There are cities that get by on their good looks, offer climate and scenery, views of mountains or oceans, rockbound or with palm trees. And there are cities like Detroit that have to work for a living.
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If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
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Don't worry about what your mother thinks of your language.
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Try not to write the parts that people skip.
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I still read Hemingway. I still read his short stories because they're so good. He doesn't waste any words.
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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.
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