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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by Elmore Leonard

Image
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.
Elmore Leonard
Image
I have fun writing. I don't make it a chore. I don't have to struggle with it.
Elmore Leonard
Image
I focus on characters as individuals with attitudes and write each scene from a particular character's point of view. That way, even narrative passages take on the character's sound. I don't want the reader to be aware of me, writing.
Elmore Leonard
Image
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.
Elmore Leonard
Image
I do have fun writing, and a long time ago, I told myself, 'You got to have fun at this, or it'll drive you nuts.'
Elmore Leonard
Image
Bad guys are not bad guys twenty-four hours a day.
Elmore Leonard
Image
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.
Elmore Leonard
Image
What do you tell a man with two black eyes? Nothing, he's already been told twice.
Elmore Leonard
Image
Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presume how to tell anybody how to write.
Elmore Leonard
Image
I try to leave out the parts readers skip.
Elmore Leonard
Image
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.
Elmore Leonard
Image
I once saw Dizzy Gillespie at a live show, and it made me want to go home immediately and start writing.
Elmore Leonard
Image
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Elmore Leonard
Image
I think any writer is a fool if he doesn't do it for money. There needs to be some kind of incentive in addition to the project. It all goes together. It's fun to sit there and think of characters and get them into action, then be paid for it. I can't believe it when writers tell me 'I don't want to show my work to anybody'.
Elmore Leonard
Image
I don't believe in writer's block. I don't know what that is. There are just certain little areas that I know I'm going to get through. It's just a matter of finding a way.
Elmore Leonard
Image
Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
Elmore Leonard
Image
Skip the boring parts.
Elmore Leonard
Image
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.
Elmore Leonard
Image
I don’t think writers compete, I think they’re all doing separate things in their own style.
Elmore Leonard
Image
I left advertising as fast as I could in 1961. And I haven't ever thought about going back.
Elmore Leonard