Quote

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.

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.
Write
Outline
Ideas
Outlines
Better
Occur
Take
Scenes
Writing
Scene
Work
Days
Think
Interesting
Thinking
Making

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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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My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: when you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.
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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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I'm very much aware in the writing of dialogue, or even in the narrative too, of a rhythm. There has to be a rhythm with it … Interviewers have said, you like jazz, don’t you? Because we can hear it in your writing. And I thought that was a compliment.
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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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I once saw Dizzy Gillespie at a live show, and it made me want to go home immediately and start writing.
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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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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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It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.
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Never use the words 'suddenly' or 'all hell broke loose.'
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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 still read Hemingway. I still read his short stories because they're so good. He doesn't waste any words.
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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 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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A man can be in two different places and he will be two different men. Maybe if you think of more places he will be more men, but two is enough for now.
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Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
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