K Montin wrote:
> Some of those principles looked pretty familiar. I
seem to remember an
> interview with Leonard in Writer's Digest a few
years ago where he made
> some of the same observations. He's often quoted as
saying he leaves out
> the parts people won't read.
>
> Looking for the magazine article I was thinking of,
I found another one,
> "Elmore Leonard: The Best Ear in the Business,"
(Writer's Digest, June
> 1977) in which he talks about writing
dialogue.
One reason Leonard's "rules" sound so familiar is that about
half of them provide ways to accomplish the Creative Writing
101 dictum to "show, don't tell." Modifiers are used to tell
the reader how characters look and behave. Generally,
selecting the right verbs and nouns will show readers,
advancing the story and keeping readers engaged.
> I remember when I used to read Robert B. Parker, and
I read about ten in a
> row, I suddenly realized that he only ever used
"said" plain, by itself,
> even with a question, which never even had a
question mark. Once I noticed,
> it started to bother me. On the one hand, it conveys
Spenser's flat
> tough-guy tone pretty well. On the other, it seems
to be a very lazy way of
> doing that. Plus, he uses the same formula for all
characters.
Which illustrates Leonard's point. If the story is moving
along, readers pay no attention to the word "said" or even
the punctuation. Context and word selection in the dialogue
show readers the correct inflection. It's only when the story
fails that readers begin to pay attention to the writing
style, as in Parker's later books. Calling attention to
writing style with unnecessarily fancy attributions will
advance the inverse.
And I don't recall Leonard saying descriptions about weather
were to be avoided entirely. He said don't start with the
weather. First hook the reader into the story and then limit
weather reports to the essentials, preferably by showing
readers the how weather affects the characters.
These are characteristics of Leonard's skill at creating
visual scenes, but I think they're also basic to keeping the
action moving, which is important in a genre that generally
sees plot as a virtue. Of course, there are exceptions,
writers who selectively break the rules in ways that keep
readers engaged.
Kerry
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