Quentin Tarantino called this man the greatest dialogue writer in American fiction. His name is Elmore Leonard. He’s dead. But, Hollywood loved him.
Leonard didn't start as a novelist, but as a copywriter.
He worked at an agency in Detroit called Campbell-Ewald. For a long time, Leonard moonlighted as a novelist. He would write advertising by day and fiction by night.
Peruse any of his novels.
You won't have to squint to see the influence.
Leonard's sentences are short, punchy and fast-paced. He had this uncanny ability to grab the reader by the shirt collar and drag him across the page.
Even his rules of writing—which we will get to here in a moment—read less like they were written by a novelist and more like they were written by a copywriter.
I believe it was Leonard's background in advertising that helped make him so wildly successful commercially. He wrote 45 novels throughout his storied career, 14 of which were adapted for the screen.
It's not fair to say that Leonard's books read like screenplays. But, like screenplays, they're bleached of anything that isn't essential.
He wasn't big on plot. Instead, he made dialogue his workhorse. He relied on the exchanges between his characters to carry the weight of the many stories he told.
Years ago, I read Leonard's novel Swag. It felt as if I was eavesdropping.
I'm not alone in this sentiment.
As I mentioned earlier, Quentin Tarantino considers Leonard one of the greatest dialogue writers in American fiction.
That’s high praise.
Have you ever seen Jackie Brown? That film was adapted from Leonard’s novel Rum Punch. I guess Tarantino didn’t like the name.
His writing process was meticulous.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Leonard's work ethic. He was a late bloomer. He was 59 when he had his first major hit.
Leonard treated the writing of his novels less like an art and more like a job. He didn't wait for inspiration to strike. Instead, he worked steadily, as if he were clocking in and out at a factory.
Despite Leonard’s prolific output, he wasn’t a particularly fast writer.
He wrote his drafts longhand on unlined yellow legal pads. He appreciated the slowness this method of writing demanded. Writing by hand kept him from getting too far ahead of himself.
Many days, he would produce only a few pages.
Unlike other writers, Leonard didn’t rely on outlines. He preferred to make things up as he went along. He liked his characters to surprise him. He wanted his novels to feel slowly discovered rather than meticulously engineered.
Again, Leonard’s superpower was his dialogue. He had a remarkable ear for the rhythm of conversation. His characters interrupted one another. They spoke in fragments. They avoided questions. They postured. They bluffed. They joked.
Greatness leaves clues.
If it’s true that greatness leaves clues, Leonard left us ten.
Elmore Leonard's 10 rules of writing are worth studying. If you’re a novelist, you might consider getting them tattooed somewhere on your forearm.
They were originally published as a set of 10. But, I’ve included a bonus rule at the end that often gets overlooked.
Never open a book with weather.
Avoid prologues.
Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said.”
Keep your exclamation points under control.
Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
Try to leave out the parts that readers tend to skip.
His eleventh rule might be the single most valuable piece of writing advice you’ll ever receive: If it sounds like writing, rewrite it.
I rewrote this piece a few times.