Biography

Elmore Leonard

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Born
October 11, 1925 · New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Died
August 20, 2013 · Bloomfield Township, Michigan, USA (complications from a stroke)
Birth name
Elmore John Leonard Jr.
Nicknames
- Dutch
- The Dickens of Detroit

Elmore Leonard was born on October 11, 1925 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for Out of Sight (1998), Get Shorty (1995) and Justified (2010). He was married to Christine Kent, Joan Shepard and Beverly Claire Cline. He died on August 20, 2013 in Bloomfield Township, Michigan, USA.

Major characters in his novels tend to have a checkered past. Their criminal tendencies gives Leonard the option of having his central figures tap into negative or positive traits for surprising end twist.
Spends the first half of a novel setting up various unrelated characters, then in the second half has them all interact, providing completely unpredictable consequences

Leonard's "10 Rules of Writing" have attained near gospel status for both established and aspiring writers alike:

1. Never open a book with weather
2. Avoid prologues
3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said", he admonished gravely
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose
6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
Secretly wrote his earliest novels while working at an advertising agency. He kept paper in a desk drawer and wrote with his arm stuck in the drawer. When somebody came by his desk, he closed the drawer. He took his writings home every night and rewrote them.
His favorite film adaptation of his books is Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown (1997) (from "Rum Punch").
Refuses to use a word processor. He writes all his first drafts in longhand, then rewrites on a typewriter.
In nearly every film made from his books, there is a scene where at least one person gets locked in the trunk of a car.

I try to leave out the parts readers skip.
[his first rule of writing dialog] If it sounds written, it's wrong.
[about the adaptation of his book "Get Shorty"] All the adaptations of my books all sucked. This one [Get Shorty (1995)] got it right for once.
If work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it.
I think any writer is a fool if he doesn't do it for money. There needs to be some kind of incentive in addition to the project. It all goes together. It's fun to sit there and think of characters and get them into action, then be paid for it. I can't believe it when writers tell me, "I don't want to show my work to anybody". Well, what are you doing it for?