# A Behind the scenes look for Readers at WHAT MAKES GOOD BOOKS WORK



## Margaret Jean (Aug 31, 2010)

Writers: Cut the Crap Elmore Leonard's Rules for Writing

This guy is a genius, most of his 40+ books have been been bestsellers and made into movies. Remember GET SHORTY? THE 3:10 TO YUMA? HE IS A CULT FIGURE AMONG MYSTERY WRITERS & IMHO the 20th Century reincarnation of Mark Twain. Funny, irreverent, master of character, dialogue and plot. His books kick, snort, sing and breathe with life.

For complete List go to http://garnetsullivanlivefromflorida.com/writers-cut-the-crap/.

Whadya think? Any other candidates or ideas?

Stephen King's observations?

When you are reading are you aware of what the writer is doing?


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## Lexi Revellian (May 31, 2010)

No! I really love the readers' approach to my book, because it's so different from writers'. 

Yes, if there's a problem, another writer might be able to tell you how to fix it - but I love the way readers don't care about POV switches, or authorial interjections, or even backstory if it's not too dull. They just want a good story, well told, that will take them to another world for a few hours. Readers' reviews tend to say just, I enjoyed this, loved the characters, stayed up late to finish it - and that'll do me.

Leave readers just the way they are, is what I say!

Lexi


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## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

Interesting rules... but some are _very_ strict... I wonder how many times he has broken them in his 40 odd books?


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## Kathelm (Sep 27, 2010)

I take issue with two of them:



> Never begin with a prologue


There seems to be a lot of bias against prologues among authors. Personally, I love them, especially in speculative fiction. They are a great way to set up the world, and show the scope of a story.



> Never us a colon or semi colon in dialogue. The same is true of ellipsis, dash and italics.


Listen to a college professor sometime. Even outside a lecture, you can _hear_ the semicolons. Why shouldn't a fictional professor talk the same way?


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## KerylR (Dec 28, 2010)

"Never use another verb in place of said."

Really?  Seriously?  Do you not write more than two person conversations?  Because having fifteen saids in two pages looks awful.  It sounds bad, too.  I get that messing about with quipped, interjected, mumbled, replied, etc... can be annoying, but if you've got four people talking, you need to have dialog tags on them, and if all you use is said, it's repetitive.

"Never us a colon or semi colon in dialogue. The same is true of ellipsis, dash and italics."

Apparently in Leonard world no one speaks in complicated thoughts, or has to think about what they are trying to say, or emphasizes any one word in a sentence.

As you can probably guess I've got all of those things in my dialog, my often three or four person dialog with verbs other than said. Now, I get that he's a major best seller and as of this point I'm not.  But I'm a little fuzzy on how you can have a complicated conversation with intelligent characters who are trying to think through things without breaking those rules.

"Never describe the physical look of a character in such great detail it takes away from the reader’s imagination."

This one I agree with wholeheartedly.  I'd add that many readers not only want to imagine the main character however it pleases them, but that many also find extensive description boring.


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## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

> My friends, introducing the incomparable Elmore Leonard's rules that can only speed you on your way:
> 
> *•Don't write what the reader will skip over anyhow.*
> •Never open your book with weather.
> ...


I've read a few of these sorts of lists, including this one. It is surprising how many of these are the same for each well published/read author. I think the first point cannot be highlighted enough. I have read so many books that feel the need to describe things in excruciating detail, and been bored by them.

On the prologue, I actually agree. Why is there a prologue? Isn't that the first chapter? If it isn't related to the actual story enough, then I'd question why it is there. Oftentimes I see prologues and I mentally classify it as chapter 1 anyway. The writing dialogue part I also agree that people do tend to speak that way and thus you do need to use it, sparringly. I've also heard writers say that you shouldn't try to use dialects or the like in dialogue, for similar reasons (it doesn't read well).


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## KerylR (Dec 28, 2010)

tim290280 said:


> I've read a few of these sorts of lists, including this one. It is surprising how many of these are the same for each well published/read author. I think the first point cannot be highlighted enough. I have read so many books that feel the need to describe things in excruciating detail, and been bored by them.
> 
> On the prologue, I actually agree. Why is there a prologue? Isn't that the first chapter? If it isn't related to the actual story enough, then I'd question why it is there. Oftentimes I see prologues and I mentally classify it as chapter 1 anyway. The writing dialogue part I also agree that people do tend to speak that way and thus you do need to use it, sparringly. I've also heard writers say that you shouldn't try to use dialects or the like in dialogue, for similar reasons (it doesn't read well).


I'd say a lot of prologues come from the way books are often published. If you need some sort of action-packed, grab-the-reader-by-the-throat first scene to get an agent, let alone a publisher, to look at your work, a prologue is an easy way to do that and then you can "start" with chapter one and getting to know the characters.

Prologues are also handy for sewing the seeds of plot points/back story that don't really fit easily into the rest of the narrative. If you don't want to blindside your readers with a McGuffin 25 chapters into your story, a prologue is a decent way to introduce whatever concept without having to break the flow of your main story.


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## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

KerylR said:


> I'd say a lot of prologues come from the way books are often published. If you need some sort of action-packed, grab-the-reader-by-the-throat first scene to get an agent, let alone a publisher, to look at your work, a prologue is an easy way to do that and then you can "start" with chapter one and getting to know the characters.
> 
> Prologues are also handy for sewing the seeds of plot points/back story that don't really fit easily into the rest of the narrative. If you don't want to blindside your readers with a McGuffin 25 chapters into your story, a prologue is a decent way to introduce whatever concept without having to break the flow of your main story.


Hadn't really thought of it that way before, but I see what you mean and can think of plenty of examples I've read. I'd always thought of it as just back story that was being told chronologically that didn't really fit due to the way the story had been written. As such if it doesn't fit enough then why does it need to be implicitly told as part of the story, rather than as chapter 1 setting up for chapter 2 with the main characters? And if it is important then why isn't it incorporated differently? Although I can see your point about the early hook and set the scene for later. It seems common in thrillers, which rely on that early action and intrigue.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Here's where I think a prologue can be useful. Say there's a scene that happens fairly significantly in the past that is going to have significant impact on the plot, though it's not directly part of the story line NOW.

One way for an author to deal with this is, when it comes to the point that the past has to be explained, the full explanation and details can be told within the story as one character relating it to another character. That works o.k., but if it's meant to be an action type thing and you want to keep it moving, that sort of thing can really cramp your style. And might cause a reader to be somewhat confused and/or not pay close attention to that backstory because they want to get on with the _real_ story.

If, instead, the writer tells the story in an interesting way in a short prologue, well, the reader will have an idea that it will become important later. Then when the point where it is important arrives, the action can keep moving because the characters can refer to it in an abbreviated fashion. The reader will say to him/herself "oh yeah, that was in the prologue" and if s/he feels the need, s/he knows right where to go to re-read the details. Or they can just move on with the story.


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## Lexi Revellian (May 31, 2010)

Not use ellipses, dashes and italics in dialogue? What was he thinking?

Lexi


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Don't you know that every person who ever speaks knows exactly what they're going to say before they start talking?  All that "um", "you know", "like" is said on purpose. . . .not because they're thinking. 

(Oops. . .I just used an ellipsis without even realizing it. . . .oh, no! I did it again.  Better stop typing or it'll never end.  )

Seriously, though, while I don't like an abundance of articulated pauses when actual people in the real world are actually speaking, you have to do something in written dialog to indicate pacing. And writing "uh", "like", "you know" all the time makes the writing seem really amateurish to me.


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## AnnetteL (Jul 14, 2010)

Like all "rules," these are mostly good guidelines, rules of thumb, and great writers break them all the time. 

Using "said" is a good example--I try to use it 90% of the time, but every so often, sure, I'll throw in a different speech tag.

On prologues, one good argument against them that I heard is that readers usually flip to chapter one to check a book out. If they buy it, they may well read the prologue, but if not, you missed hooking them. Alternately, you have to hook your reader twice: first in the prologue, and then again with Ch 1 because it's probably in a different place and time. 

A friend of mine published a book that begins with what, plot-wise, is really a prologue, but he just called it chapter one. Sneaky way around the problem, I thought.


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## KerylR (Dec 28, 2010)

Ann in Arlington said:


> Here's where I think a prologue can be useful. Say there's a scene that happens fairly significantly in the past that is going to have significant impact on the plot, though it's not directly part of the story line NOW.


That's how I ended up with a prologue. It happens twenty years before the main action and is the key to what the current characters are looking for. It lets me tell the reader why certain things are important and give them a better idea that there's way more than meets the eye with one of the tertiary characters without just suddenly making him a major plot point 55 chapters into the story.


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## VivianMarie (Jan 9, 2011)

Ryne Douglas Pearson said:


> There is only one rule in writing for an audience: don't bore them.
> 
> Everything else is violable.


I like this rule.


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## KatieKlein (Dec 19, 2010)

I use both ellipses _and_ italics in my dialogue. . . . Oops.


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## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

Ryne Douglas Pearson said:


> There is only one rule in writing for an audience: don't bore them.
> 
> Everything else is violable.


Best writing rule ever. Thanks for sharing this.


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## Margaret Jean (Aug 31, 2010)

AnnetteL said:


> Like all "rules," these are mostly good guidelines, rules of thumb, and great writers break them all the time.
> 
> Using "said" is a good example--I try to use it 90% of the time, but every so often, sure, I'll throw in a different speech tag.
> 
> ...


As the saying goes, "Rules are made to be broken." People who break rules to the greatest effect and with greatest success, tho, are people who know the rules first and then cleverly break them.

Lively discussion! Love it!


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## jason10mm (Apr 7, 2009)

Those sound like good rules to write an ELMORE LEONARD style novel, which are very sparse, terse, and filled with overly stoic characters. I definitely wouldn't want every author to adopt the same writing style, just like I wouldn't want to drink only Malbecs, eat only salt and peppered porterhouse steak, and watch only Rambo movies. Sure, I love all those things, but variety is key!


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## Margaret Jean (Aug 31, 2010)

Lexi Revellian said:


> No! I really love the readers' approach to my book, because it's so different from writers'.
> 
> Yes, if there's a problem, another writer might be able to tell you how to fix it - but I love the way readers don't care about POV switches, or authorial interjections, or even backstory if it's not too dull. They just want a good story, well told, that will take them to another world for a few hours. Readers' reviews tend to say just, I enjoyed this, loved the characters, stayed up late to finish it - and that'll do me.
> 
> ...


You're right abt readers for sure. All any of us want is a good story. Here's what I said-- tongue in cheek--about a good story in the author's note to my next book (a collection of short stories):

From Author's Note in my latest collection of stories (to be pubbed next month):

"Aristotle explained this best and at great length at a toga party some years ago, but all we need to agree upon here in order to move forward is, to wit: a story is made of words or pictures and starts somewhere and ends somewhere and in the middle something happens. If it's good, we want to see what happens; if it's not we ask for our money back. All other accoutrements and cavils are beside the point, most importantly any relationship it might have to the truth, which is something no two squirrels, let alone any two people, have ever agreed upon since the earth cooled and Adam lost his rib. And that's my story and I'm sticking to it.□"


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## Margaret Jean (Aug 31, 2010)

KerylR said:


> "Never use another verb in place of said."
> 
> Really? Seriously? Do you not write more than two person conversations? Because having fifteen saids in two pages looks awful. It sounds bad, too. I get that messing about with quipped, interjected, mumbled, replied, etc... can be annoying, but if you've got four people talking, you need to have dialog tags on them, and if all you use is said, it's repetitive.
> 
> ...


Keri, I think you're 100% right here re: punctuation, etc. and character or author dealing with complexities that require "intellectual" thought. Elmore's rules are the ones HE follows to achieve his "signature style" (as someone noted here "terse," minimalist) and the style is suitable for his characters and plots (small time crooks, low lifes, shady deals/situations). AND it is also an effective style for his subtle but ROTFL humor about these dunderhead /dumb+dumber characters getting themselves caught, apprehended, exposed. I'm smiling and thinking of "Get Shorty" right now.

Leonard's Rules aren't for everyone, gads no. But I do think they're helpful in ferreting out what he calls "hoopedoodle" that gets in the way of creating a gread read for the reader, like pointless stylistic flourishes, hot air, too much blah blah. Leonard is death on the over-use of adverbs (funny abt it), which is a good thing I think, a la "DreamiLY and softLY Lady Mortimer fairLY sailed across the room and tremulousLY, tenderLY and daintiLY picked up her handkerchief which was confoundingLY laying laziLY in the cat box."

Readers know hoopdedoodle when they see it and it has ruined lots of otherwise good stories.


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## Margaret Jean (Aug 31, 2010)

jason10mm said:


> Those sound like good rules to write an ELMORE LEONARD style novel, which are very sparse, terse, and filled with overly stoic characters. I definitely wouldn't want every author to adopt the same writing style, just like I wouldn't want to drink only Malbecs, eat only salt and peppered porterhouse steak, and watch only Rambo movies. Sure, I love all those things, but variety is key!


Just found a recent L.A. Times piece on "rules." Kinda interesting. Love one of the rules: **Torture your protagonist.**  http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2010/07/janet-fitchs-10-rules-for-writers.html Happy people as characters in stories for some reason just aren't interesting. Go figure. I guess that's why Milton's "Paradise Lost" is much preferred by readers over his "Paradise Regained," and why Dante's "Inferno" is so much more interesting than his "Paradaiso."


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## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

Margaret Jean said:


> Keri, I think you're 100% right here re: punctuation, etc. and character or author dealing with complexities that require "intellectual" thought. Elmore's rules are the ones HE follows to achieve his "signature style" (as someone noted here "terse," minimalist) and the style is suitable for his characters and plots (small time crooks, low lifes, shady deals/situations). AND it is also an effective style for his subtle but ROTFL humor about these dunderhead /dumb+dumber characters getting themselves caught, apprehended, exposed. I'm smiling and thinking of "Get Shorty" right now.
> 
> Leonard's Rules aren't for everyone, gads no. But I do think they're helpful in ferreting out what he calls "hoopedoodle" that gets in the way of creating a gread read for the reader, like pointless stylistic flourishes, hot air, too much blah blah. Leonard is death on the over-use of adverbs (funny abt it), which is a good thing I think, a la "DreamiLY and softLY Lady Mortimer fairLY sailed across the room and tremulousLY, tenderLY and daintiLY picked up her handkerchief which was confoundingLY laying laziLY in the cat box."
> 
> Readers know hoopdedoodle when they see it and it has ruined lots of otherwise good stories.


Which I think is why I agree with his rules to large extent. I think you've nailed it in saying that if you look at his rules and then at our own writing you realise you have to either rethink it or rewrite it. Did I really need that long run on sentences speech on physics by a minor character, or would it have been better just to say it was a bomb and the main character has to defuse it? You essentially have to justify your work to yourself (and your audience), using "rules" like these as a guide.

As a reader I often find myself thinking 'why is this bit even here?' So as writers we probably have to think carefully about why we include things, and if there is a better way of doing it, rather than using the easy way.


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## mscottwriter (Nov 5, 2010)

I love knowing that readers think about books because, so often, I think I get too wrapped up in the way I *think *a story needs to be told.

My kids all love to read, and I appreciate their input on the books they are reading why they think they don't work. For example, there was a book that switched characters quite a bit (which is something I usually love), but all of them said it was confusing. They wanted the story to pick one character and stick with him.


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## Tom Schreck (Dec 12, 2010)

Sometimes I think there is a real danger in dissecting what makes books work.

The whole is often greater than the sum of the parts. Imitating a style or technique can be very transparent.


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## Annalinde Matichei (Jan 23, 2011)

I am beginning to learn that "saids" are invisible. I hate writing "said" all the time in dialog, but readers rarely notice it (within reason). As a writer, one can also tend to underestimate how quickly a conversation can become confusing to the reader if the speakers aren't regularly identified. 

There is nothing wrong with "asked", "replied" or "added", in my view, but it is true that any fancy variants are jarring. "Offered" is horrible. And to have characters "laugh" sentences is intolerable. I am sure this all comes from underestimating the invisibility of "said".

EDIT - Come to think of it, even "added" requires extreme caution!


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## Margaret Jean (Aug 31, 2010)

Sebastian Kirby said:


> Keri
> 
> Great idea for a thread!
> 
> ...


 Hey, Sebastian, I going to call you out on your comments here because people ALWAYS do that to me when I hop in a discussion and sound off without having taken the time to read whole the thread! Hey, I understand the urge to blurt, especially if I sense (usually erroneously) that I'm a little more in the know about the subject than the rest of the sounder-offers. Lots of good comments in this thread, most of which already covered the points you so brilliantly made in your post!


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## Margaret Jean (Aug 31, 2010)

mscott9985 said:


> I love knowing that readers think about books because, so often, I think I get too wrapped up in the way I *think *a story needs to be told.
> 
> My kids all love to read, and I appreciate their input on the books they are reading why they think they don't work. For example, there was a book that switched characters quite a bit (which is something I usually love), but all of them said it was confusing. They wanted the story to pick one character and stick with him.


Forgive me, I am about to go off on a tangent, but a VIP one for us today.
You are a **great**mom** Your kids are learning to read critically and analytically and do not swallow whole whatever they read or hear or are told. I've been an intermittent college professor for 25+ years on and off as I pursued my publishing and writing careers in NY & elsewhere. I can tell you, one of the most disturbing and ominous signs we are losing it as a society is that more and more people believe without question everything--what they read and hear, regardless of the source. And they don't stop to think of how they might be victims of verbal-visual shysterism/manipulation. HOW something is communicated (fiction, journalism, politcal blah blah) is part of the message itself. Check out Marhsall McCluhan's The Media is the Massage and his Understanding Media. As for fiction/stories, if they don't like it, they walk away from it, no damage done (maybe). But words are like the little individual components of nuclear bombs or the cure for cancer or world peace. How they are combined and sequenced can result in mushroom clouds or salvation. Your kids are learning to ask the right questions. Is the craft and sourcing of the book/movie/website/tv program etc. productive of good or ill? You knock me out. Hope.

30th anniversay ed. of Understanding Media:
with a new introduction by Lewis H. Lapham. This reissue of Understanding Media marks the thirtieth anniversary (1964-1994) of Marshall McLuhan's classic expose on the state of the then emerging phenomenon of mass media. Terms and phrases such as "the global village" and "the medium is the message" are now part of the lexicon, and McLuhan's theories continue to challenge our sensibilities and our assumptions about how and what we communicate. There has been a notable resurgence of interest in McLuhan's work in the last few years, fueled by the recent and continuing conjunctions between the cable companies and the regional phone companies, the appearance of magazines such as WiRed, and the development of new media models and information ecologies, many of which were spawned from MIT's Media Lab.
with a new introduction by Lewis H. Lapham This reissue of Understanding Media marks the thirtieth anniversary (1964-1994) of Marshall McLuhan's classic expose on the state of the then emerging phenomenon of mass media. Terms and phrases such as "the global village" and "the medium is the message" are now part of the lexicon, and McLuhan's theories continue to challenge our sensibilities and our assumptions about how and what we communicate. There has been a notable resurgence of interest in McLuhan's work in the last few years, fueled by the recent and continuing conjunctions between the cable companies and the regional phone companies, the appearance of magazines such as WiRed, and the development of new media models and information ecologies, many of which were spawned from MIT's Media Lab.--AZN
"A timeless analysis of how language, speech and technology shape human behavior in the era of mass communication. The book is a cautionary tale for marketers today who hear the Web's siren call and ignore the power of the spoken word."


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