for writers: Elmore Leonard Makes Writing Simple

Do not dismiss this posting as only useful for mystery or cowboy writers. "Yup, I reckon, this here posting is helpful to anyone who wants to write well." 

Do not dismiss this as good advice for men writers. Elmore Leonard was a writer's writer. He was asked to write an article about writing for the New York Times, and it was so well received, that he turned it into a book, Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing, which sold successfully. If you don't like buying from Amazon, here is the link to Alibris, or use this link to booksamillion. A copy of this tome should never rest on the top shelf of a writer's library, where it cannot be reached at a moment's notice. It is a frequent flyer for a writer who wants to communicate to his audience. 

The New York Times asked him to write the article because, he writes well - and across many genres. He knows his subject, and he is smart enough to know what his audience wants. And then he sells it to them in an honest way so they want to read his works. 

He was known as the master of dialogue, and young writers are always told to read him to see how he makes his dialogue realistic. 
I will save you $11 bucks and briefly list his 10 rules, although just listing them does not have the same educational value, as reading his book.

He calls them tricks to good writing:

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.

These rules were excerpted from his New York Times article. 

I am not 20% of the writer he is but I also know rules are made to be broken when that breakage serves a very good purpose. So before you write against the above rules one through nine, think hard and think long and never think suddenly. He said assuredly.  

The only rule that should never be broken is number ten. It is worth repeating. "Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. They are going to skip them anyway, why waste the ink?  

My added warning, especially to writers who have done extensive research and need to amortize their time and energy, be careful. You are walking on creative quicksand. Extraneous, show-off unimportant/insignificant knowledge {all knowledge that does not move the story forward or let the reader know vital information.}, no matter how seemingly appropriate, is just showing off. It slows us down, and makes us wonder if we understand the story. 

Readers hate a show-off. Readers hate being bored. Our answer is something an author does not want to hear. We put down the book, and worst yet, they bad mouth your style.

The best you can hope for is we give you a reprieve and just skip that section, and keep reading. But how many times can we give you a pass. Three strikes and you are out in baseball. When I read, you only get two strikes.  

Some setting and description of place and such is certainly appropriate, but every time a character twitches, we don't need to know the scenery in detail, and described ad-nauseum. If we wanted to read a travelogue, we would have bought one.  

In particular, I have started the book, the Alienist, twice (over the last 18 months), and cannot get past the first thirty-five pages. 

Maybe it is me.

Is it you too? 

Caleb, please, buy Elmore's book and read it. Not so much weather and less of the scenery, fewer hansom rides and more action early please. We know who Teddy Roosevelt was and what he became, but is that so fascinating that it can carry the story? 

I think my answer is clear.  

That's my opinion, what is yours?

-- L. Preschel author of the Sam-Cath mysteries.

For Readers & Authors - Mystery as Morality Plays - Carrying on the great tradition

Even from before the time of the Greek tragic playwrights, humans have been fascinated with the workings of eternal justice. How does morality balance the cosmos? When and how are the just rewards delivered to those of an evil ilk?  

The works of Aeschylus (Prometheus Bound, The Oresteia), Sophocles (Seven Against Thebes, Antigone, Oedipus the King, Electra), Euripides (Medea, Electra, Andromache, Herakles, The Trojan Women, Hecuba) and many subsequent playwrights show the intense desire humans hold for eternal justice, probably, because at times, it seems lacking on earth. 

The quest to provide justice on earth may have given birth to ancient religions or may be the religions gave birth to this quest, either way, humanity has been on it for ages. 

After all, is not the crux of religion, the balancing of earthly wrongs in the hereafter? The rewards of the just, postponed to eternity. In every religion in which heaven is hypothesized, the rewards are for the just, not the corrupt or evil souls. 

Human nature and mystery readers in particular are not that patient. In the same manner as the Greek audiences, they cannot delay their gratification that long. Wait an eternity for justice? Are you insane?  

Mystery readers are looking for the "bad guys/antagonists" to be found out, and justice to be brought by the protagonist on earth and especially by the last pages of the book. We want that sheet balanced before the epilogue.

When Snidely Whiplash gets what he deserves, the hero has put the world in order. We will even accept a Deus Ex Machina so our hero can serve justice to the evil villain. Whether he serves it with his fists, guns, dynamite or just an arrest, we are happy with the ending.  

We feel as if evil is under control. No bad deed goes unpunished. Since we are all good people, the story confirms the existence of immediate earthly Karma, at least on the page of a book.       

How simple? How logical? How utopian? How truly unrealistic?

Further along this line of logic, I propose, a writer needs a subject that is morally important to the reader to hold his or her interest throughout his story. Finding Michelle's lost sock may fascinate first graders, but to an adult audience it holds little interest. The loss of life, or money (a robbery) or a change of fortune carries much more weight to a mature reader. 

A subject of universal concern, bigger than life is needed for adults to stay reading, and people must be able to relate to that subject personally. Stir that reader's emotions and the interest brews deeply like a Starbuck's pour over. 

Write it in first person or third person, but keep that reader close to the action. They want the answer to the question, is there justice in this world? Tell it through Watson or let Holmes speak directly to the reader, your choice, either works.   

How will the detective/protagonist (In the well written book, the reader subconsciously substitutes "how will I") bring justice to balance the cosmos? They hope with the protagonist, and they plot against the antagonist. They read on. They fear for the good and wish against the bad. They turn another page.  

When justice is received, they put down the book with a satisfied feeling as if they themselves brought about this occurrence, enforcing the eternal balance of the literary cosmos.    

This theory elevates the intellectual raison d'etra of mysteries to that of the great Greek Tragedies. Mystery writers are the modern representatives of the ancient tradition.

In a mash-up of the above theories, we may easily assume that the greatest source of ideas for today's creative mystery writer is The Holy Bible, The Ten Commandments, and the seven deadly sins. 

For in Western culture what greater repository of morality exists than those precepts. Mystery writers such as Hammett, Chandler and Cain carry on the tradition of the Greek playwrights and bring justice and morality to the masses with antagonists that violate The Ten Commandments on a regular basis. 

Today we thank: James Patterson, Robert B. Parker, Mary Higgins Clark, Michael Connelly, Lee Child and their compatriots for sustaining the great legacy. 


-- L. Preschel author of the Sam-Cath mystery series.

Josephine Tey - Forgotten? Master of Mystery. The Stephen King of the 1940's

Those who don't know history, have no idea what they are missing.

Josepine Tey was born in July 25, 1896, until her death on February 13, 1952 she taught school and eventually wrote - quite well if her audience is any judge. Her real name was Elizabeth Mackintosh. She was Scottish and maybe her ability to write was fostered by her mother who was also a teacher. She had two sisters. 

Tey was her pen name for her mystery stories and she wrote plays under the name of Gordon Daviot. Apparently, this was her favored alias as she used it often in public to keep her personal life secure. She avoided press and shunned interviews as well as photographers. 

Maybe that is why a serious mystery reader of the late 20th century, which I consider myself to be, had no freakin' idea who the hell she was. Am I truly such an illiterate heathen? 
Is she important? Why do we care?

We do because, British Crime Writers listed her mystery: The Daughter of Time as the number one crime novel ever written in their list from1990. The Daughter of Time was published in 1951. Mystery Writers of America made a list in 1995, and The Daughter of Time was listed as number four. She is listed among Christie, Poe, Chandler, Conan Doyle, Cain, Sayers, Westlake, MacDonald, Greene, Leonard, and Hammett, as well as other more recent master of the genre. She is ahead of all of them on the MWA list except: Arthur Conan Doyle, Dashiell Hammett, and Edgar Allen Poe. 

And yet, I do not recall coming across her name prior to today. 

Her well-written novel is not a case of a blind squirrel bumping into the acorn once in a lifetime. She also holds down place number 11 on the CWA list with her novel: The Franchise Affair from 1948. 

But back to The Daughter of Time, while her serial's protagonist, Alan Grant, a Scotland Yard Inspector, is recovering immobile in his hospital bed from serious injuries, using the serves of his friends, he researches the mysterious murders of the nephews of King Richard the third. This is, of course, history to Inspector Grant as it is to us as well. Grant uses documents and reference books to reach a conclusion: King Richard was totally innocent of the death of the Princes. 

In writing this formate, she essentially created the format for historic mystery novels - I call them docu-fiction. In The Daughter of Time, Josephine Tey concludes: the infamous Richard III of Shakespeare, school history books, and folk memory, is a Tudor fabrication - a device of literary fiction for England's most famous playwright. Her case for the defense is notably restrained. 

She was not limited to writing for theater or novels. 
A later novel, A Shilling for Candles (1936), became the basis for Alfred Hitchcock's favorite of his English era films, as Young and Innocent (1937). 

I doubt that in today's world of media tours - twitter, face book, p-interest, linked in, google plus, tsu, U-tube, streaming videos, Squiddo.com, goodreads, MySpace, Shelfari, authornation, Hubpages, Digg.com, Stumbleupon, Reddit.com, Mixx.com - that Josephine Tey aka Gordon Davoit, or the real person, Elizabeth Mackintosh could have survived as she wanted to, as a recluse, unbothered and invisible. She could not have stayed such a hermit. Unless her name is Stephen King.   

-- L. Preschel author of Sam-Cath mysteries.