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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.
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.
Great
Places
Margaret
Things
Scene
Describing
Unless
Detail
Bring
Scenes
Story
Description
Language
Details
Action
Paint
Standstill
Stories
Flow
Descriptions
More quotes by Elmore Leonard
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.
Elmore Leonard
Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
Elmore Leonard
I still read Hemingway. I still read his short stories because they're so good. He doesn't waste any words.
Elmore Leonard
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Elmore Leonard
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
Never use the words 'suddenly' or 'all hell broke loose.'
Elmore Leonard
Bad guys are not bad guys twenty-four hours a day.
Elmore Leonard
There's nothing like work to take your mind off your worries.
Elmore Leonard
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
I want the reader to know what's going on. So there's never a mystery in my books.
Elmore Leonard
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.
Elmore Leonard
I never see my bad guys as simply bad. They want pretty much the same thing that you and I want: they want to be happy.
Elmore Leonard
Try not to write the parts that people skip.
Elmore Leonard
Don't worry about what your mother thinks of your language.
Elmore Leonard
It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.
Elmore Leonard
I once saw Dizzy Gillespie at a live show, and it made me want to go home immediately and start writing.
Elmore Leonard
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.
Elmore Leonard
If work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it.
Elmore Leonard
Skip the boring parts.
Elmore Leonard
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
