celticmisery33-blog

[celticmisery33-blog]

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[celticmisery33-blog]

Hey, Have you entered this competition to win Garden Joy - Mother's Day Sweepstakes yet? If you refer friends you get more chances to win :) https://wn.nr/LqVyp7m

[celticmisery33-blog]

Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing

THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE THAT SUMS UP ALL TEN: If it sounds like writing, re-write it.

1. Never open a book with weather. If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. 

2. Avoid prologues. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.

3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue. Because “said” is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied.

4. 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.

5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.

6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.” This rule doesn’t require an explanation. Writers who use “suddenly” tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.

7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly. Once you start spelling words phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won’t be able to stop.

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters. In Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants what do the “American and the girl with him” look like? “She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.” That’s the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.

9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things. Long descriptions often bring the action and 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. In those moments, the writer is often writing for the sake of writing, perhaps taking another shot at the weather or going into the character’s head, and the reader either knows what the guy’s thinking or doesn’t care.