Going Dutch


Going Dutch

"Once you hear the Dutch accent you can’t get it out of your head, and for innumerable readers it became a siren song."

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-dutch-accent-elmore-leonards-talk

Gregg Sutter writes about doing research for Elmore Leonard, including a lengthy interview with the real Ernesto “Chili” Palmer.

https://crimereads.com/how-i-helped-elmore-leonard-write-get-shorty/

Originally shared by Rick Wayne (Author)

"It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does."

"The writer has to have patience, the perseverance to just sit there alone and grind It out. And if it’s not worth doing that, then he doesn’t want to write.”

Some quotes from Elmore Leonard I saw today, on what would have been his 93rd birthday. I don't know what it says about me that I agree with almost none of his advice.

Take his famous Ten Rules:

1. Never open a book with weather
2. Avoid prologues
3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said”
5. Keep your exclamation points under control
6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose”
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters
9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip

Almost all of them are shit. I really don't want to take the time to refute each and every one, but as an example, let's look at William Gibson's famous opening line to Neuromancer:

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

Granted, it's not as simple as "It was raining in Dogtown..." but that's my point. It's not what you do, it's how you do it, and Gibson did it well. Opening with the weather doesn't make you a hack. Opening with a hack opening makes you a hack, weather or no.

Or take the second rule, on prologues. Harry Potter had one. So did Coehlo's "The Alchemist" and Brandon Sanderson's "The Way of Kings" and Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose," just to mention a few.

Are prologues better avoided? For most writers, maybe. But in my experience, flabby writing is like flabby meat: marbled all the way through. If a book has a flabby prologue, odds are it doesn't end there.

Again, it's not what you do, it's how you do it. And since we all learn by doing, the better advice would be: If you're going to write prologues, write LOTS of them so you learn how to do it well -- or not at all.

I could go on, but I think I've made the point. Half of the list above is not just questionable, it's wrong -- such as only ever using the word "said." The rest, like Rule No. 10, isn't wrong so much as vague to the point of meaninglessness. He may as well have said "Write well." No shit, dude.

But then, this is a man famous for saying you should write for the money.

Don't get me wrong. I like the man's books. But he was a better writer than teacher, which is probably true of a lot of natural talents.

This is art by Daeyoon Huh inspired by Coelho’s "The Alchemist."

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