Elmore Leonard’s Rules
I’m a bit late to this, but it seems like a good time to link to Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing, since it is one of my favorite “Ten Rules” out there (which are legion). Damned if I can find a proper link to the actual full article Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle, unfortunately. Interestingly, despite adverbs being specifically called out in the title, they are pretty much absent from the rules, beyond the one about modifying dialogue tags (which is good, since Language Log has pointed out, as they are wont to do, that Leonard’s writing was pretty heavy on adverbs).
“Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.” Ha!
Like all great rules, that one seems kind of obvious, but it really isn’t, is it?
Thems some good rules.