Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing

Has anyone else seen this one? When I saw the ebook edition of Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing listed on Fictionwise Monday, I was really excited. I thought it was going to be an expanded version of the original article. I bought it before looking for reviews or before looking at the book in the store.

Whoopsie. It turns out that it's an illustrated gift book edition of the original article. Because of that, it's not doing well on Amazon. I agree with many of the points of the reviewers there, but I have to give some kudos for presentation. The rules are cool and useful, of course. And the presentation of the book is attractive. It is cheaply priced for a gift book (it's a small hardback that's under $15, and the ebook edition was even less). I also liked the illustrations. But... I still felt ripped off by this book. If I'd seen it in the bookstore, I would have known it was just an article turned into a gift book and said "Oh, how cute. Never mind." But because I bought it from an ebook site, I couldn't flip through the book, and for security reasons, you can't return ebooks. That'll learn me to look for reviews first.

MakingLight covered the orignal Ten Rules article, and I'll pick up more from those comments and reactions to the article than I did from the book itself. If you want to read the original rules, you can read them here. (You might have to register to read the original article as it's a New York Times article.) On the other hand, it might make a good gift for a writer, particularly one who is an Elmore Leonard fan. Especially if they haven't read the original rules yet.

rugcat said:

I've always been fond of this Somerset Maugham quote:

"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."

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So true.

dpaterso said:

Trivial coincidence, I just read that list yesterday, I was browsing this year's Bulwer-Lytton entries (just to brush up on my prose writing technique) and noticed Elmore Leonard unknowingly critiques Bulwer-Lytton at the bottom of the main page links.

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Is that a dark and stormy coincidence? And why is it that I can hear Snoopy typing?...

gerrydodge said:

I had never seen this list before, but I know that my wiriting has gotten better since I began to adhere to these rules the more I write. Funny though, my favorite writer is Faulkner and he ignores all of these, mostly, and for my money is still the best writer America has ever produced.

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That's the problem with many of those rules. They usually don't apply to the great and timeless authors. Even the non-literary but timeless authors (such as Edgar Rice Burroughs) tend to break those rules. Yet people still read them. Sometimes the trick of learning writing rules isn't just learning the rule but figuring out when to shove the rule in a sock, stick it in a box, tape it up, and shove it in the back of a closet.