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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.
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.
Three
Two
Exclamation
Writing
Prose
Points
Allowed
Control
Words
Keep
More quotes by Elmore Leonard
Never use the words 'suddenly' or 'all hell broke loose.'
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
Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presume how to tell anybody how to write.
Elmore Leonard
There's nothing like work to take your mind off your worries.
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
All the information you need can be given in dialogue.
Elmore Leonard
Bad guys are not bad guys twenty-four hours a day.
Elmore Leonard
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Elmore Leonard
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
Skip the boring parts.
Elmore Leonard
Try not to write the parts that people skip.
Elmore Leonard
To me, a book is a book, an electronic device is not, and love of books was the reason I started writing.
Elmore Leonard
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.
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 work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it.
Elmore Leonard
It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.
Elmore Leonard
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.
Elmore Leonard
I want the reader to know what's going on. So there's never a mystery in my books.
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
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
