Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing [Annotated]

Sirs, Madames,

I passed the 10 Rules along to my j-class (feature and mag writing) on Friday, along with Mrs Kelly's Monster. My classroom discussion for Monday: Does Death of a Racehorse pass the Leonard test?

The rules as a guideline, fine. A place for students to start, perhaps. In stone, no.

YD&OHS, etc

 

http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2007.htm

Seems as good a place as any...


Oh, and well done, jg.

 

Is "Mrs. Kelly's Monster" the Jon Franklin piece?

 

Yep. Here it is. Won the inaugural Pulitzer for Feature Writing, 1979.

http://www.bylinefranklin.com/bylinefranklin/drama-_monster.html

 

He annotates it in "Writing for Story." Really interesting.

Did you know that it ran at the bottom of the local section when the Baltimore Sun first ran it? No one knew what to do with narrative?

 

Amen.


Nash Buckingham also did a fair job with dialect, sho' did.

 

Sirs, Madames,

Hate to bare my soul here.

Is there something more soul-sucking than teaching this stuff?

Two feelings:

I've never been more exhilirated. I've never been more frustrated.

A girl talked to me after a few classes--talent's pretty obvious, writes in a voice that's identifiable, natural, feature-ish, what-have-you. She talked to me about coming out of rehab ... shit. And after only being in the course because her boyfiend was in it, she's excited about doing it. (A very nice feature about her brother and his friends who are aspiring pro wrestlers.) She hand-wrote her assignments and I could tell ... one draft and a beautiful, identifiable, original, idiosyncratic voice.

Then there's the faculty, administrators, what have you, that demand per the course outline that the students write an advertorial and other only slightly less noxious assignments -- I tell the students, shit, give me a good short feature and a good long one and a cheque for either and you'll have a hard time not getting an A. Of course I'll be ground up by the bureaucracy that denied me a degree, which is why I work for only 70 bucks an hour and spending 20 bucks to make the trip to class.

There. I feel better. There's an easier way to make a buck.

YD&OHS, etc

 

I think we've had this battle before, but I have to chime in every time.

I disagree with you.

There is craft to this. There are structures and devices that work. You understand them intuitively. Not everybody does.

Musicians and writers are the only professionals who are taught that it's not OK to admit they didn't pop out of the womb with their skills fully intact.

 

i don't recall reading something other than "said" and thinking it really added anything. i certainly don't recall feeling that way when i was the one writing.

 

Use every weapon you have.

 

Mr Wannabe,

You might be mis-reading me. I understand that there's craft to it and I can't think of anybody who came about it intuitively, born writing as it were. Certainly not me. Teaching is rewarding in its own way--it's the shit you have to endure to teach that sucks or at least the shit you have to endure to teach that small percentage of kids who want to be there and are trying to learn.

Leonard's rules are a useful tool. But in stark contrast to Mr macg's prose, a piece that breaks each one of those rules could be great ... or even great because of it!! he said with a grimace etc

YD&OHS, etc

 

Lots of exclamation points = trite! cute! girly-girl!

All the things Mr. Leonard is not.