10 Rules of Writing

Some possibly Mediocre Writing about Good Writing…

In 2010 I was given the chance to write about the Kansas City Royals and while I’d occasionally written in the past, this meant writing a lot and writing every day which as anyone who’s done it can tell you, is a whole different deal.

As someone once said of sex with a nymphomaniac: “The first 10,000 times are great.”

So one night I’m writing about a Royals game and need another word for “pitcher” because I’d written “pitcher” too many times already and through the miracle of also reading too many sports articles and being chock-full of sports clichés, came up with “moundsman.”

I wrote the word “moundsman” and stared at it because I’d never used that word in my entire life and never heard a ballplayer use it either and I sincerely doubt anyone ever sat in a major league dugout and said, “Boy, our moundsman is twirling a no-hitter tonight!”

Ballplayers also never say “twirled a no-hitter.”

Bad sports writers use it because they read it somewhere else and are just repeating someone else’s bad writing. It sounds wrong and off and false because nobody ever says it in Real Life.

When I tried to “write” it sounded fake and phony, but I did know how to tell a story if we met in a bar, so I decided that’s what I’d do: quit worrying about “writing” and tell the story the same way I would if we met in a bar and you asked me what happened in that night’s Royal game.

Which led to a very conversational, stream-of-thought writing style, littered with asides and jokes and an occasional profanity and someone once gave me a compliment (or depending on your point of view, maybe it was an insult) when they told me reading one of my articles was exactly like talking to me.

So if you think my writing sucks let’s hope we never meet because apparently I’ll suck just as much in person.

Anyway…

Since 2010 I’ve had to do a lot of writing and thinking about what kind of writing I enjoy and why I enjoy it and at the top of my list of enjoyable writers is Elmore Leonard.

Look him up and you’ll realize you’ve either read one of his books or watched a movie based on one of his books or watched a TV show – Justified – which was originally based on one of his short stories.

Thrillers, detective novels and books where shit happens

I have to read a lot of news stories whether I want to or not and I like well-written history and biographies (although those are hard to find because most historians and biographers can’t write for shit) but when I’m reading for entertainment and enjoyment I’m drawn to books that have a story to tell and get right to it.

Literary snobs might not want those books on their shelves, but in my experience when they’re well written, the need for brevity and forward movement forces the writer to come up with some great lines that tell you everything you need to know in as few words as possible.

Like:

• A walking time bomb: if you listened carefully, you could hear her tick. – Mick Herron

• She was a right nice Christian woman on the inside, but the outside looked like a four car pileup. – Joe R. Lansdale

• “Most people work their whole lives to get to the point where they do one thing okay, not great, just okay. People who get great, they only do one thing. Most great singers can’t swim for shit.” – Timothy Hallinan

• He’d been away from that business a long time, and he’d forgotten the rush it involved, the sense that, just for a little while, you were living your life in italics. – Donald Westlake

• “Old age is not a burden. It is a privilege denied to many.” – Lawrence Block

• “This is a short life they give us,” Pop said. “If we don’t decide what we want and try to get it, then time marches on and we’re left behind, right?” – Richard Condon

• Janet had been considered a Wheatfield natural resource since high school. – John Sandford

• “His desire is Cooperstown, his talent is Pawtucket.” – Robert B. Parker

• My mother was a grenade just looking for someone to pull the pin.  – Allen Eskens

• Don’t pick a fight with reality. – Gregg Hurwitz

I collect sentences I like and feel free to disagree because I won’t know and/or give a shit, but you could read some boring and pretentious books on philosophy that will be impressive on your shelf – Look, everybody…Nietzsche! – but still get worse Advice About Life or Descriptions of the Human Condition and what we should do about it.

OK then.

I’ve read it before, but recently re-read “Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules for Writing” and this time decided to write the rules down and share them with you just in case you decide to write a novel of your own or maybe it will just help you enjoy good writing and recognize bad writing and appreciate the difference.

The bold-face lines are Elmore Leonard’s rules; the other stuff is my commentary.

1. Never open a book with weather

Writing about the weather slows a book down from the very first paragraph and way too many writers use it as an opportunity to show off with words which is OK if you like that sort of thing, but I don’t.

Here’s how Leonard starts his book Raylan:

Raylan Givens was holding a federal warrant to serve on a man in the marijuana trade known as Angel Arenas, forty-seven, born in the U.S. but 100 percent of him Hispanic.

This is the first sentence of The Hot Kid:

Carlos Webster was fifteen the day he witnessed the robbery and killing at Deering’s drugstore.

And the first sentence of Cuba Libre:

Tyler arrived with the horses February eighteenth, three days after the battleship Maine blew up in Havana harbor.

One sentence in and you know who the story’s about and at least some of what it’s about and you immediately wonder what happens next. Leonard’s books start like the 100-yard dash; the starter’s pistol goes bang and you’re off and running.

Basically, Leonard doesn’t waste your time describing clouds.  

2. Avoid prologues

Same principle: you’re trying to hook the reader and a prologue following an introduction that follows a foreword is good way to get off to a bad start. It’s like a reader asked for a glass of wine and you planted grapes.

Call me shallow (it won’t bother me because I can’t hear you) but I’ll often pick up a book and read the first sentence and if that sentence sucks I figure the author probably won’t improve over the next 400 pages.

Bad opening sentences are like bad pick-up lines: the experience being offered isn’t likely to improve.

(BTW: I googled “pick-up artist” images and this D-Bag came up and he was on an VH1 show called “The Pickup Artist” which I’d like to think explains all the uncool shit guys shouldn’t do, but probably doesn’t. Apparently, he calls himself “Mystery” and the mystery appears to be why any woman would ever bang him.)

Anyway…

I also hate biographies that start out describing the incredibly boring ancestors of the interesting person you actually want to read about. I think those writers did research and can’t bear not to use it so you get to hear about George Armstrong Custer’s great grandfather who worked in a clothing store in Philadelphia when all you really want to know is how shit went down at the Little Bighorn.

3. Never use a word other than “said” to carry dialogue

Leonard believed dialogue belongs to the character and the verb is the writer’s and if you want to tell a story without being intrusive “said” is less annoying than “grumbled” or “gasped” or “chortled.” They also sound phony and false because you can’t actually “chortle” and deliver a sentence at the same time.

Go ahead and try it, but make sure you’re alone when you do because you’re going to look like an idiot.

Annoying and distracting words are also why I think George Will’s writing sucks dicks. He wants you to know how smart he is so he uses ten-dollar words to describe ten-cent ideas. If you have something worthwhile to say, just say it and good ideas don’t need to be propped up by pretentious words like “mendacious.”

(Jesus Christ, I spelled that right without looking it up…maybe George is on to something.)

4. Never use an adverb to modify the word “said”

Adverbs qualify or modify an adjective or verb and they almost always weaken the adjective or verb and interrupt the flow and rhythm of a sentence and is once again a sign the writer doesn’t trust his own words or his readers to understand what’s happening without adding a word like “gravely.”

“It’s time to go” he warned gravely.

It’s like wading through literary mud to get to the point.

5. Keep your exclamation points under control

I hate exclamation points!!!

They’re another sign of poor writing because the author clearly doesn’t believe his or her words were adequate and they had to use an exclamation point to make sure you know something exciting just happened.

If you think about it – and I just did – it’s an insult to the reader because the writer doesn’t think you’re smart enough to realize someone getting pushed off a cliff is important unless they write: “Suddenly, she was pushed off a cliff!”

6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all Hell broke loose”

Once again they indicate the writer’s words didn’t convey the situation clearly and need the help of a verbal crutch like “suddenly.”

Leonard’s writing has been described as “deadpan” and “matter-of-fact” and if he writes a line like – “When he answered the door, Harry shot him three time in the chest” – the word “suddenly” doesn’t add anything and in fact dilutes the impact of a direct statement.

7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly

When overdone, spelling words phonetically – “I was workin’ with some Eyetalians in Deetroit” – is the writer once again showing off and distracts from the story.

Here’s another Joe R. Lansdale quote that sums up pretentious writing:

Read a little from a book by an author who didn’t use quotation marks and was scared to death his work might be entertaining.

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters

Show what the characters do and say and let readers decide what they look like and sometimes a description can ruin a character because that’s not how you see them in your head.

Probably a personal flaw of mine (so many things are) but I don’t like photos of authors on book jackets because you see some balding, overweight, near-sighted schlump with a receding chin and he writes about an “apex predator” named Rock Hardbody and Rock’s killing villains with well-placed toothpicks and banging every hot chick that crosses his path, but when you see the doofus writing this crap your realize you’re aiding and abetting this guy’s juvenile fantasy life.

This is James Bond:

This is Ian Fleming:

Hey, I’m trying to live my juvenile fantasy life through your writing, so don’t fuck it up by reminding me we’re both dorks.

9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things

Leonard thought that interrupts the flow of the story and brings the action to a standstill and another one of my other favorite authors – John Sandford – writes about a cop who gets a book deal and the other cops are giving him advice about writing and unanimously think he should avoid writing sex scenes because they screw up a good crime story.

In my experience very few writer write about sex well which is why we have sex in the dark and don’t post internet videos of us doing it unless we’re attention-starved B-List Celebrities; we look goofy and say goofy shit while having sex. Face it: when they fuck even dogs look embarrassed.

10. Try to leave out the part that readers skip

According to Leonard the skippable parts are wordy paragraphs where the writer tries to show off and describe the weather or someone’s feelings or how they’re dressed, but he doesn’t think readers skip dialogue because dialogue carries the story forward. Leonard would rather “show” than “tell” and let you figure out what a character is feeling and thinking by what the character says and does.

Now here’s the one Elmore Leonard rule that sums up the other ten:

“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”

Leonard didn’t want to distract the reader with “obvious writing” and apparently Joseph Conrad felt that same way because he talked about words getting in the way of what you want to say.

Bottom Line: Content’s more important than presentation  

Unfortunately, some realizations come late in life and you could have used them much sooner, but better late than never and at some point I realized I didn’t have enough artistic talent to draw my way out of a mediocre cartoon idea.

Same goes for writing.

When I was writing about baseball as long as I had a good story (and all the good stories came from players and coaches) my job was to get out of the way and tell readers what the players and coaches told me. I had to trust the content and resist the temptation to over-draw or over-write which seems like the motivation behind a lot of bad writing.

If the basic story isn’t that good (yet another terrorist wants to blow up the Statue of Liberty on the Fourth of July and our hero — Jake Patriot — is in a Race Against Time) the writer might try to dress it up with a lot of descriptions and adverbs and exclamations points.  

Now take a look at some of Elmore Leonard’s story ideas:

• In Hombre the bad guys rob a stagecoach, but one of the passengers winds up with the money and takes off across the desert.

• In The Switch a gang kidnaps a rich guy’s wife on the same day he files for divorce.

• In Out of Sight a bank robber breaks out of prison, takes a female U.S. marshal hostage, but develops a crush on her.

One sentence in and you want to know what happened next.

Leonard had great story ideas and made things sound true and honest because he’d write down interesting lines someone said in Real Life and use those lines in his stories. He also didn’t mind ambiguity; Good Guys doing bad things or Bad Guys being funny (Leonard once said every villain has a mother and convicts still talk about baseball) and because he had confidence in his stories Leonard could do his best to remain “invisible” which was his goal as a writer.

And I’ll bet Elmore Leonard never used the word “moundsman.”