Elmore Leonard - Writing Quotes

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After 58 years you'd think writing would get easier. It doesn't. If you're lucky, you become harder to please. That's all right, it's still a pleasure.

Elmore Leonard

Alcohol never prevented me from writing. But when I quit — on January 24, 1977, at 9:30 a.m. — my fiction got better.

Elmore Leonard

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10. If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Elmore Leonard

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.

Elmore Leonard

My grandson, Max, who is an all state lacrosse player, once gave me some lacrosse advice: A limp pass is like a limp dick; it doesn't get the job done. I think the same can be said about limp writing.

Elmore Leonard

It's my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing.

Elmore Leonard

These are rules I've picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I'm writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what's taking place in the story,

Elmore Leonard