Dragaera

OT: a great ten rule

Thu Feb 26 13:31:02 PST 2004

Found this browsing through boingboing. I was amused.
Just passing it along.  Page link is http://www.boingboing.net/

W






Elmore Leonard's ten rule for writers. Brilliant.

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.

(this is my third link from Teresa Nielsen Hayden in one day, which has to
be some kind of record) Link (via Making Light) posted by Cory Doctorow at
10:09:25 PM