"The writer must remain invisible"
When my teenage son picked up Elmore Leonard鈥檚 10 Rules of Good Writing, it fell open to Rule 3: 鈥淣ever use a verb other than 鈥榮aid鈥� to carry dialogue.鈥�
鈥淚 wish my teachers could read this,鈥� my son said. 鈥淭hey tell us not to use 鈥榮aid.鈥� They think other words make us sound better, like we have a bigger vocabulary.鈥�
Which is precisely Elmore Leonard鈥檚 point: Good writing is not about the writer (and the way he sounds or the size of her vocabulary), but about the story.
The writer must remain invisible.
Leonard explains Rule 3: 鈥淭he line of dialogue belongs to the character. The verb is the writer sticking his nose in鈥� 鈥榌S]aid鈥� is far less intrusive than 鈥榞rumbled,鈥� 鈥榞asped,鈥� or 鈥榗autioned.鈥欌��
Ditto for asseverated, a word that once sent him in search of a dictionary, thus breaking the spell of the story he was reading.
But just switching to 鈥渟aid鈥� isn鈥檛 enough. With tongue in cheek, Leonard spells out Rule 4:
鈥淣ever use an adverb to modify the verb 鈥榮aid,鈥� 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.鈥�
Leonard would have writers scrap boring details like weather, scenery, and what characters look like. Pitch-perfect dialogue should bring the story to life: Who the characters are, how they feel, why they act as they do.
This book appeared originally as an article in The New York Times in 2001, titled 鈥淓asy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points, and Especially Hooptedoodle.鈥�
Clever line drawings by Joe Ciardiello spice things up.
鈥淗ooptedoodle鈥� was John Steinbeck鈥檚 name for 鈥減retty words鈥� that butt in between the reader and the story. Yet Leonard allows for just a little, as handled by the masters 鈥� for example Margaret Atwood鈥檚 scenery and Jim Harrison鈥檚 landscapes.
It鈥檚 hard to argue with this master of the craft who started publishing in the mid-1950s and whose books soar to the top of bestseller lists.
A few of his rules won鈥檛 stir up trouble: Avoid the word 鈥渟uddenly,鈥� use regional dialect sparingly, write in scenes from the point of view of the character whose view can best bring the scene to life.
But Rule 10 may raise hackles: 鈥淭ry to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.鈥� This means 鈥渢hick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them.鈥� Says he: 鈥淚鈥檒l bet you don鈥檛 skip dialogue.鈥�
Leonard鈥檚 most important rule sums up the rest: 鈥淚f it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.鈥�
I snatch the book from my son before he gets to the next page, too libertine for his impressionable mind: 鈥溾�f proper [English] usage gets in the way, it may have to go.鈥�
