Elmore Leonard's Rules for Writers (2010) | Hacker News Reader

Elmore Leonard's Rules for Writers (2010)

theguardian.com

73 pointsrmason64 comments

Tell your story with the fewest words possible.

Don't cheat the previous rule by using sesquipedalian words.

Describe the action instead of the irrelevant details. Every detail you include is a Chekhov's Gun that will have to be fired later.

Take out the character that is most like you. Take out the character that is least used. Make them fight to the death in their own short story, and reward the winner with a nice, hot shower in a post-apocalyptic dystopia. If they survive, they can be more interesting in the next story you let them into.

I've enjoyed his prose for exactly these reasons, though he's not a favorite author or anything.

If you're a film buff, you can thank him for Quentin Tarantino + Joel & Ethan Coen.

If his story-telling philosophy sounds appealing, check out Justified. It's a TV show loosely based on some of his characters, but it's written like a love letter to his work. It finished just after his death, and was refreshing to watch right around when the concept of "prestige" TV started to collapse into itself / constant navel gazing trying to be the next Breaking Bad. There's a lot to take in about modern Appalachia (it takes place in rural Kentucky), but there's no heavy-handed metaphors. It's not trying to be a Greek tragedy or a Dickens novel, just razor-sharp dialog and fun action that somehow adds up to more than the sum of its parts.

I enjoy Leonard's work, but Cormac McCarthy is probably the anti-Leonard in terms of writing style and he's been easily as influential to the Cohens.

Is there another McCarthy story the Coens have done besides "No Country", very late in their career? I would also call McCarthy "the anti-Coen".

In fairness, are there any Cohen films that use any of Leonard's writing as a source material?

No, I don't think so.

Out of curiosity, what makes McCarthy the anti-Leonard? I've only read McCarthy and not Leonard, but reading this article immediately reminded me of McCarthy in that it recommends a spare prose style.

Guess I'm thinking of Blood Meridian when it comes to Leonard's rule about not using extended vocabulary. Also McCarthy tends not to use punctuation, including quotations, so speech tends to be implicit in the prose. But it's hard to pin McCarthy down stylistically, so there may be a better example.

What Leonard story did the Coens ever adopt? They were signed for one in the 90s, but never did it.

They never did an straight adoption like Tarantino did, but almost every Coen bros movie uses the same tropes as many Leonard novels:

- Incompetent criminals (organized crime and / or desperate ordinary people) drive story - Kidnapping or ransom - Things go south, bad guys ruin themselves when things get too complicated - Attention to natural dialog and story progression over grand metaphor or symbolism

In terms of the Coen bros / Cormac McCarthy comparison also mentioned, I'd say they were drawn to that one McCarthy novel because it fits all the same tropes.

McCarthy can be super metaphorical and poetic, but there's an extreme simplicity to his work at the same time, especially in No Country for Old Men.

Isn't "attention to natural dialog" one of the things Leonard says in this piece people should avoid? "Avoiding regional patois" is hardly something you can say about Coen films, some of which seem to exist entirely to showcase one particular patois or the other.

> "Avoiding regional patois" is hardly something you can say about Coen films,

His advice to "use regional dialect, patois, sparingly" seems very specifically not to be about avoiding characters who speak in such a dialect, but instead to be about the mechanism in which the use of regional patois is conveyed in writing ("Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won't be able to stop"), which, as the end product isn't the written word, is pretty much indistinguishable in the output of a movie, so the advice is probably not all that relevant to the medium (whether it would apply to writing screenplays is an interesting question, but again not really something that manifests on screen.)

I guess.

And what about the claim that the Coens are thematically in debt to Leonard because they make movies about criminals undone by the complexity of crime? Look, for instance, at The Ladykillers, the Coen movie that most exemplifies this theme --- and a remake of a movie that predates Leonard's bibliography.

You can find any number of pieces on Coen influences; their diversity is supposedly a Coen strength. Blood Simple and Miller's Crossing, for example, owe much more to Dashiell Hammett.

Elmore Leonard is surely an influence (and, in particular, to Ethan Coen's published writing), but I don't think it's their most important. Surely, we'd have Coen movies without Leonard.

I don't know that you can say that about Tarantino.

If Blood Meridian were adapted into a comedy it would probably look a lot like "O Brother Where Art Thou?".

I am having a hard time imagining a story less similar to O Brother than Blood Meridian.

An odyssey set in the Jim Crow south? To each their own, I guess.

O Brother is The Odyssey set in the south; Blood Meridian is the ur-Western, and isn't based on an epic poem of any sort. (As a nit, I'd also say O Brother is set in the Depression-era South).

I didn't claim Blood Meridian was based on a poem. But I do consider it an odyssey, set in the South (Eastern Texas), and during the Jim Crow era. And last I checked, the Jim Crow era encompassed the 1930s, especially in the South.

By odyssey I mean:

1. a long wandering or voyage usually marked by many changes of fortune 2. an intellectual or spiritual wandering or quest

I think Blood Meridian fits that description.

Blood Meridian is set before Jim Crow, and all across the American Southwest.

It's also just tonally about as far as you could possibly get from O Brother. If it was a comedy, it would be American Psycho. If Fargo was just people being fed into the wood chipper, it would be the comedic counterpoint to Blood Meridian.

One McCarthy influence I've seen many times in Cohen films is their exploration of nihilism. You could say aspects of Leonard's characters are nihilistic, but Leonard's worlds are rarely (if ever) so.

I think you're attributing to McCarthy something better attributed to film noir, which is one of the Coen's most obvious and remarked-on overt reference points.

I don't consider Film Noir inherently nihilistic.

It's not, it's just a trope of the genre.

Big second for Justified. It was a great show with few low points and a solid finish. And, oh the dialogue... It's like what Sorkin would have written if he wanted his characters to sound like human beings.

I watch very little TV, but that was a really solid show with a lot of great lines and a fun feel. Even though it was sort of a drama, it always felt a little bit cartoony somehow, not quite real in a larger than life way. That kept it more fun even when it was a bit grim.

Opening scene for the whole series (in Florida, rather than Kentucky): https://vimeo.com/205769578

Tim Olyphant as Raylan Givens and Walton Goggins as Boyd Crowder absolutely nailed their parts. Leonard expressed his appreciation for the actors and for the writers on numerous occasions. An amazing but underappreciated show.

http://gioclairval.blogspot.it/2010/02/umberto-ecos-rules-fo...

The original Italian by Umberto Eco:

http://www.webnauta.it/wordpress/40-regole-per-scrivere-bene...

which was in itself inspired by William Safire:

http://www.listsofnote.com/2012/01/fumblerules-of-grammar.ht...

http://www.maximumawesome.com/reference/g-safire.htm

"My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it."

There's an interesting relevance to software here. You don't usually want your creation to foreground its own artifice.

If anything sounds like writing, it's this comment.

I agree with the sentiment, though.

Well, in general I agree in that form should follow function. In the case of prose though, which is art, things aren't that clear. Written language can disguise itself as spoken language but that's just another mask. If you ever cared to transcribe some group talk or interview, you will quickly realize that nobody would want to read dialogues like that.

Some pretty good advice overall, but it's more important to understand why these rules are important and why it's valuable to follow them (and why it might be worthwhile to break them). Also note that there are exceptions to every rule, but you are probably not the exception.

Most importantly, writing (like coding) is not a process of scrubbing through a checklist of rules and making sure you follow each one. Build your toolkit through practice, refine it by editing yourself with a critical eye (using lists of advice if you like), learn to improve what comes out the first time in the future, and get closer and closer to a natural cycle of being able to reliably produce good writing without herculean effort. It's the same as in coding. You need to learn the lessons to know what patterns of code are useful, what code smells are worth putting in the effort to fix, how to effectively refactor code and go from one design to another without dropping the ball or hitting a wall along the way. It'll never stop being work, but you can get good enough so it will feel natural and you'll be able to produce stuff that you can feel proud of (even when you look at it years later).

> Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them.

There are two good pieces of advice here, I think.

One is about thick paragraphs of prose, and I think it really comes down to ergonomics. It's hard to read big walls of text. Word count in this context doesn't matter so much as word spacing.

The second point is that some writers tend to include all the mundane details and in-between stuff that surrounds the story, but isn't actually part of the story itself.

What constitutes "the story" and what constitutes "the other stuff" is, of course, dependent on the story being told, the author, and even the reader. If you're reading Tolkien, the journey is the story. But if you're reading modern fantasy, you might want to skip all the walking between battles.

I thought the same about Tolkien. Tolkien breaks almost every suggestion from the list: he is verbose, his writing is intrusive -- he's constantly reminding you there's an author, with weird phrasings and lots of "and lo!" -- his descriptions of weather and geography go on forever, as do his prologues.

BUT I don't think Leonard is saying Tolkien is wrong. He's just saying you aren't Tolkien, and that most writers should take heed of his suggestions, not that every writer must.

This might be good advice for a lot of writers, but it might depend on genre. In particular, some of it is surely wrong for science fiction...

Some of these rules are "how not to sound like an amateur", especially #3 through #6. I think these are nearly universal.

Others are how to keep the fiction feeling fun, like the rules about not physically describing characters. This is much more particular to what the author is doing with the novel, and I think they're better understood as defaults that you should overrule only if you really want to. And I think that this is so largely regardless of genre.

My personal taste in SF largely obeys all of these rules. But my girlfriend, who is also an SF fan, definitely loves books that violate some or all of 7, 8, and 9. Perfect example, I think I'd have enjoyed Feersum Endjinn a lot more if it had followed these rules. But then again, maybe if it did, it'd be nothing special (as it is, it's a pretty special book that happens to be not-really-for-me).

Can you recommend some SF that mostly follows these guidelines? It's what I like reading as well. Thanks! :)

> In particular, some of it is surely wrong for science fiction...

I think they are all overstated, but for the most part the points underneath them are equally valid for most fiction writing, including science fiction.

I think Neal Stephenson's Anathem outrageously violates rules 9 and 10.

> 9 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.

> 10 Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them.

I'm sure that Stephenson isn't every science fiction fan's cup of tea, but on the other hand there's quite a lot of science fiction where the exposition is a big part of the appeal.

Compare the first few chapters of snow crash with pretty much anything else he’s written.

I suspect many of us who like Stephenson like him in spite of his plodding indulgences.

I had the good luck to be able to ask Terry Pratchett once which writer he most admired. He said "Elmore Leonard" immediately.

Every rule can be bent and broken, if you're good enough. And sometimes you do have to mention the green antennae protruding from your character's head. But you can find some of the best science fiction authors sticking to the general shape of these rules. Kurt Vonnegut springs first to mind. John Scalzi is another master of this style of writing. And while he's not a science fiction author per se, Terry Pratchett shows a lot of Leonard's influence.

Because science fiction is known for the quality of its prose? ;)

It is these days. Check out China Miéville for starters. And Michael Chabon won a Hugo award.

Those names shine so brightly because the sky is so dark ;). China Mieville is awesome, as is Michael Chabon. And I’ll throw in Charles Yu ( How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe). You’re right that there are lots of talented writers out there in the field. I love science fiction, and my criticism was a bit of “making fun of your own.” You can’t deny there is also a huge mass of third rate hackery - same as with other genre fiction like Crime, Romance, Historical Fiction, etc. Its not all Ursula LeGuin and Samuel Delaney ;).

Fair enough. And I did see your wink. :) I do think the trend is increasingly towards literary sci-fi, though, especially in print (less so in film and TV where it's become almost synonymous with action).

Cf. Sturgeon's Law, and its genesis.

I once got into a somewhat vicious argument with a friend who was working on a doctoral thesis. My background was English literature and journalism, his was psychology. I said that his thesis was poorly written, he said that it was "the style" and I didn't "get it."

The thing is, "writing" isn't a convention, or a style, or a science. It is the craft of making an idea understandable. A couple semesters of journalism should be required to any scientist or doctor or basically anyone who feels like they should ever bother sharing their lifetime of knowledge.

In his short stories Philip Dick pretty much followed these suggestions. He always cuts to the chase. His characters are mostly nondescript; their only importance is how they directly impact the story (if he ever dwells on something, it's his characters' jobs and their connection to, say, an ex-wife). A particular sci-fi gadget will be minimally described, if at all, as PKD wasn't very interested in technology for its own sake. In general he kept descriptions to a minimum and dialogues very short.

The eleventh rule should be: understand exactly why all of these rules exist, so you can know when it's possible (or necessary) to break them.

These items are rather common sense guidelines almost everybody would agree with. As I'm not in crime fiction and since English isn't my mother tongue, I have to confess that I don't know EL. I'd suggest to another rule though: don't write a book if you have nothing new to add. Recommend some classic instead.

Yes, everything except the admonition against describing the weather is extremely common English-language writing advice, as mentioned in countless books and essays over the years. With the bit about weather, he tries to be punchy, but he immediately has to backtrack and explain what he actually meant: get quickly to character action and don't belabor set-dressing.

What works for one writer won't work for another. It depends on many factors, such as the audience or the genre of writing. It's possible to break these rules and have huge success. Some people like huge expository descriptions. Others like dialogue. Some like short and simple words. Others like complicated.

Yes,

It's worth noting Leonard is described as "hard boiled crime writer" and his rules for paring down writing to the minimum seem for the kind of writing that moves the reader relentless forward, not wasting any time to "stop and smell the roses". That legitimate approach - just not the only approach.

> What works for one writer won't work for another.

And he specifically mentions Barry Lopez and Margaret Atwood as writers to whom certain of the rules don't apply.

But not everyone can describe the weather or location like them. These rules are for those who can't.

I've always seen these rules as defaults. If you break them with a purpose then it can work, but otherwise they form a good basis for your writing.

There is a great chrome extension waiting to be written based on this.

I don't know about Chrome extensions, but there's Grammarly and the Hemingway App.

I read this as rules for winters and was hoping for a list of things that help cure seasonal depression brought on by winter.

It's clearly starting to mess with my head.

not uncoincidentally, these make for great transitions to a screenplay. Leonard's screen adaptations have been, in the aggregate, very successful.

Rule 11: Develop your own voice, and know when to completely ignore rules 1-10.

Shorter: Just write dialogue.

But most people can't write dialog very well. It's a rare writer who can write dialog that sparkles - that's a joy to read.

I think "just write action" would be more accurate, though dialog is an important subset of action.

A pretty standard set.

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