Quote

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

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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.
Point
Aware
Sound
Characters
Individual
Reader
Write
Scene
Character
View
Attitudes
Take
Attitude
Passages
Writing
Particular
Narrative
Even
Focus
Individuals

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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.
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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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If work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it.
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There's nothing like work to take your mind off your worries.
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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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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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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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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.
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If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
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Bad guys are not bad guys twenty-four hours a day.
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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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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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All the information you need can be given in dialogue.
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I don't want the reader to be aware of me as the writer.
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It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.
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What do you tell a man with two black eyes? Nothing, he's already been told twice.
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Try not to write the parts that people skip.
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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.
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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 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.
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