[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 122 (Tuesday, September 17, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Page S6511]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REMEMBERING ELMORE LEONARD
Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, when Michigan novelist Elmore Leonard
passed away on August 20, the world lost an irreplaceable voice, a
witty creator of unlikely and unforgettable characters who, like their
creator, knew the value of brevity.
Leonard's novels took place in the American West, in the Everglades,
in the Horn of Africa or the streets of Havana, but they always carried
a little of his hometown, Detroit. His protagonists, like his hometown,
were tough and gruff, but loveable and good-hearted, people of few
words but bold actions. Like his hometown, Leonard's writing was
without pretense or formality. ``If it sounds like writing,'' he said,
``I rewrote it.''
The New York Times accurately described Leonard as ``A Man of Few,
Yet Perfect, Words.'' In 2001, he wrote for The Times a short essay on
his tips for writers, titled, ``Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points
and Especially Hooptedoodle.'' Their aim, he said, was to ``remain
invisible when I'm writing a book, to help me show rather than tell
what's taking place in the story.'' His rules for writing are useful
for all of us who write and want to be read, and I ask unanimous
consent that they be printed in the Record. The world has lost a great
writer. I have lost a friend.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[Published: July 16, 2001]
Writers on Writing: Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and
Especially Hooptedoodle
(By 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. If you
have a facility for language and imagery and the sound of
your voice pleases you, invisibility is not what you are
after, and you can skip the rules. Still, you might look them
over.
1. Never open a book with weather.
If it's only to create atmosphere, and not a character's
reaction to the weather, you don't want to go on too long.
The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are
exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more
ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all
the weather reporting you want.
2. Avoid prologues.
They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an
introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are
ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel is
backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.
There is a prologue in John Steinbeck's ``Sweet Thursday,''
but it's O.K. because a character in the book makes the point
of what my rules are all about. He says: ``I like a lot of
talk in a book and I don't like to have nobody tell me what
the guy that's talking looks like. I want to figure out what
he looks like from the way he talks . . . figure out what the
guy's thinking from what he says. I like some description but
not too much of that . . . Sometimes I want a book to break
loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle . . . Spin up some pretty
words maybe or sing a little song with language. That's nice.
But I wish it was set aside so I don't have to read it. I
don't want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.''
3. Never use a verb other than ``said'' to carry dialogue.
The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is
the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less
intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once
noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with ``she
asseverated,'' and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb ``said'' . . .
. . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or
almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing
himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can
interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in
one of my books tell how she used to write historical
romances ``full of rape and adverbs.''
5. Keep your exclamation points under control.
You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words
of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers
the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.
6. Never use the words ``suddenly'' or ``all hell broke
loose.''
This rule doesn't require an explanation. I have noticed
that writers who use ``suddenly'' tend to exercise less
control in the application of exclamation points.
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and
loading the page with apostrophes, you won't be able to stop.
Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavor of Wyoming
voices in her book of short stories ``Close Range.''
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
Which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway's ``Hills Like
White Elephants'' what do the ``American and the girl with
him'' look like? ``She had taken off her hat and put it on
the table.'' That's the only reference to a physical
description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know
them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
Unless you're Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with
language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison.
But even if you're good at it, you don't want descriptions
that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a
standstill.
And finally:
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.
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I
can't allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt
the sound and rhythm of the narrative. It's my attempt to
remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with
obvious writing. (Joseph Conrad said something about words
getting in the way of what you want to say.)
If I write in scenes and always from the point of view of a
particular character--the one whose view best brings the
scene to life--I'm able to concentrate on the voices of the
characters telling you who they are and how they feel about
what they see and what's going on, and I'm nowhere in sight.
What Steinbeck did in ``Sweet Thursday'' was title his
chapters as an indication, though obscure, of what they
cover. ``Whom the Gods Love They Drive Nuts'' is one, ``Lousy
Wednesday'' another. The third chapter is titled
``Hooptedoodle 1'' and the 38th chapter ``Hooptedoodle 2'' as
warnings to the reader, as if Steinbeck is saying: ``Here's
where you'll see me taking flights of fancy with my writing,
and it won't get in the way of the story. Skip them if you
want.''
``Sweet Thursday'' came out in 1954, when I was just
beginning to be published, and I've never forgotten that
prologue.
Did I read the hooptedoodle chapters? Every word.
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