Elmore Leonard: The Beloved Author’s 10 Rules of Writing
“If it sounds like writing … rewrite it.”
How heartbreaking to learn that the wonderful Elmore Leonard (October 11, 1925–August 20, 2013) has died, and what a bittersweet invitation to revisit his timeless contribution to the meta-literary canon: On July 16, 2001, Leonard wrote a short piece for The New York Times, outlining his ten rules of writing. The essay, which inspired the Guardian series that gave us similar lists of writing rules by Zadie Smith, Margaret Atwood, and Neil Gaiman, was eventually adapted into Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing (public library) — a slim, beautifully typeset book, with illustrations by Joe Ciardiello accompanying Leonard’s timeless rules.
He prefaces the list with a short disclaimer of sorts:
These are rules I’ve picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I’m writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what’s taking place in the story. If you have a facility for language and imagery and the sound of your voice pleases you, invisibility is not what you are after, and you can skip the rules. Still, you might look them over.
Leonard then goes on to lay out the ten commandments, infused with his signature blend of humor, humility, and uncompromising discernment:
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. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.
2.Avoid prologues.
They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.
There is a prologue in John Steinbeck’s Sweet Thursday, but it’s O.K. because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: “I like a lot of talk in a book and I don’t like to have nobody tell me what the guy that’s talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. . . . figure out what the guy’s thinking from what he says. I like some description but not too much of that. . . . Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That’s nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don’t have to read it. I don’t want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.”
3.Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated,” and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.
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. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances “full of rape and adverbs.”
5.Keep your exclamation points under control.
You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.
6.Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
This rule doesn’t require an explanation. I have noticed that 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 in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won’t be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavor of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories Close Range.
8.Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
Which Steinbeck covered. 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.
Unless you’re Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even if you’re good at it, you don’t want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.
And finally:
10.Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he’s writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character’s head, and the reader either knows what the guy’s thinking or doesn’t care. I’ll bet you don’t skip dialogue.
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative. It’s my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing. (Joseph Conrad said something about words getting in the way of what you want to say.)
If I write in scenes and always from the point of view of a particular character — the one whose view best brings the scene to life — I’m able to concentrate on the voices of the characters telling you who they are and how they feel about what they see and what’s going on, and I’m nowhere in sight.
What Steinbeck did in Sweet Thursday was title his chapters as an indication, though obscure, of what they cover. “Whom the Gods Love They Drive Nuts” is one, “Lousy Wednesday” another. The third chapter is titled “Hooptedoodle 1″ and the 38th chapter “Hooptedoodle 2″ as warnings to the reader, as if Steinbeck is saying: “Here’s where you’ll see me taking flights of fancy with my writing, and it won’t get in the way of the story. Skip them if you want.”
Sweet Thursday came out in 1954, when I was just beginning to be published, and I’ve never forgotten that prologue.
Did I read the hooptedoodle chapters? Every word.
Complement Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing with the 10 best books on writing and the collected advice of other famous writers, including Walter Benjamin’s thirteen rules, H. P. Lovecraft’s advice to aspiring writers, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s letter to his daughter, Zadie Smith’s 10 rules of writing, Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 keys to the power of the written word, David Ogilvy’s 10 no-bullshit tips, Henry Miller’s 11 commandments, Jack Kerouac’s 30 beliefs and techniques, John Steinbeck’s 6 pointers, Neil Gaiman’s 8 rules, and Susan Sontag’s synthesized learnings.
美國知名犯罪與西部小說家 Elmore Leonard（艾爾莫·倫納德）在其著作《Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing》中，提出了 10 條旨在讓作家保持隱形、用「展現」代替「說教」的寫作法則。 [1, 2]
1. 永遠不要用描寫天氣當作故事開頭 (Never open a book with weather)
- 解釋： 如果描寫天氣只是為了營造氣氛，而不是角色對環境的直接反應，讀者很容易會快速翻頁尋找「人的蹤跡」。開門見山讓角色登場，才能立刻抓住眼球。 [1]
2. 避免使用序言 (Avoid prologues)
3. 除了「說」之外，絕不用其他動詞來承接對話 (Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue)
- 解釋： 對話的控制權應該在角色手中，而不是作者跳出來指手畫腳。諸如「他嘟囔道」、「她怒吼著」等動詞，會干擾對話本身的張力。用最平實的「說（said）」，能讓讀者專注於台詞內容。 [1]
4. 絕不使用副詞來修飾「說」這個動詞 (Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said")
5. 嚴格控制你的驚嘆號 (Keep your exclamation points under control)
6. 永遠不要使用「突然間」或「場面頓時失控」這類詞彙 (Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose")
- 解釋： 這類詞彙屬於陳腔濫調，且往往流於「用說的」而非「用演的」。如果事情發生得很突然，直接寫出事件本身，其帶來的衝擊力和速度感反而更強。 [1]
7. 極其克制地使用地方方言或俚語 (Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly)
- 解釋： 試圖用複雜的拼音或文字來強行呈現某種方言，會增加讀者的閱讀障礙（讀者必須在腦海中重新轉譯音標）。一旦讀者感到吃力，就會失去閱讀的樂趣。 [1]
8. 避免對角色進行過於詳細的外貌描寫 (Avoid detailed descriptions of characters)
9. 不要花費大量篇幅描寫地點與事物 (Don't go into great detail describing places and things)
- 解釋： 除非你是擅長華麗堆砌風格的文學大師，否則過多的環境描寫只會拖慢故事節奏。讀者想看的是情節推進和角色互動。 [1]
10. 試著刪掉讀者傾向於跳過不讀的部分 (Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip)
💡 總結
若您正在創作，我們可以進一步討論：
- 您目前創作的是哪種類型的故事？
- 您是否想針對其中某條法則（例如如何不用副詞寫對話）進行實戰改寫練習？
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