Writing, it’s hard work. The best make it look easy. It’s not. There are rules. Elmore “Dutch*” Leonard knew them all. He should. He wrote Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing along with 45 other books, including the best selling novels Get Shorty, Glitz, and 3:10 to Yuma and one children’s book, A Coyote’s in the House.
He died last week. He was 87, and he was still writing. He showed rather than told what was taking place in a story. He also never opened with weather, avoided prologues and exclamation points, and avoided detailed descriptions of characters.
Some writers use pretty language, or sing a song with words. Some just like the sound of their own voice. Leonard wrote in a sparse, slick style that kept him out of the story, and the reader in it. He cut to the essence of character. He made it real.
He was the last of the great pulp novelists. Although he was best knows for his cops and crooks, he began writing fiction while working in advertising. It was the early 1950s, and western fiction was selling. He sold over 30 short stories, even though a literary agent once told him, “Don’t give up your job to write.”
The western genre declined and he turned to crime fiction. It was eight years before he sold his first crime novel, The Big Bounce. Published in 1969 and shortly followed with a Hollywood movie staring Ryan O’Neal, neither was a success. In fact, he never hit the bestseller list until he was 60 years old with Glitz, but he was just getting started.
Many of his novels went on to become bestsellers and successful Hollywood movies, including Get Shorty, Jackie Brown, Out of Sight and Hombre. 3:10 to Yuma, based upon a short story by Leonard, was adapted into a film twice: first in 1957, then again in 2007 starring Russell Crowe, and the movie version of The Switch will be debuting at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.
In 2010, the writer with the smart, cool dialogue was hot once again with the television series Justified, starring Timothy Olyphant as the U.S. Marshall. The TV show was first inspired by the novella, Fire in the Hole. The U.S. Marshall who plays by his own rules also appeared in Pronto, Riding the Rap, and Raylan.
He last novel was published in 2012, and debuted at No. 7 on the New York Times Bestseller List. He was 86. He was writing the day that something exploded in his head, the stroke that would ultimately kill him three weeks later. The book was to be called Blue Dreams, and the main character was his guy Raylan Givens, the good guy with an edge.
Writing is hard work, but Leonard made it look easy. All you really have to do is leave out the part readers tend to skip. Sometimes words just get in the way, and if it sounds like writing, rewrite it. Now endings, they aren’t as easy as they look…
*His nickname Dutch was taken in honor of baseball pitcher, Emil “Dutch” Leonard.
Ride the Rap? Or get out of sight? Email me at from_my_shelf@yahoo.com and let me know. Miss a past column? Go to http://frommyshelf.blogspot.com and catch yourself up. Be sure to look for Hobo’s (bookstore cat) new revisionist Western involving werewolves, death rays, and dancing gophers. Town’s not big enough for the two of us…
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