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I don’t think writers compete, I think they’re all doing separate things in their own style.
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.
Style
Things
Think
Thinking
Compete
Separate
Writers
More quotes by 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 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
I left advertising as fast as I could in 1961. And I haven't ever thought about going back.
Elmore Leonard
I have fun writing. I don't make it a chore. I don't have to struggle with it.
Elmore Leonard
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
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
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
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
What do you tell a man with two black eyes? Nothing, he's already been told twice.
Elmore Leonard
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Elmore Leonard
I want the reader to know what's going on. So there's never a mystery in my books.
Elmore Leonard
Don't worry about what your mother thinks of your language.
Elmore Leonard
Try not to write the parts that people skip.
Elmore Leonard
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
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
I try to leave out the parts readers skip.
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
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
Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presume how to tell anybody how to write.
Elmore Leonard
Skip the boring parts.
Elmore Leonard
