Elmore Leonards Ten Rules Of Writing

Having read them a few times, and heard them many different ways before, I think I probably disagree with many of them, agreeing more and more as the list goes on as it happens. Or at least i find them as rules that should be acknowledged and broken.

As OP said above, I think as long as it isn't a 'dark and stormy night' (though i see no reason dark and stormy wouldnt work in different words) I think weather openings can be fine. Agreed that they are my preffered and can be a bit lazy, but 'never' is a bit firm.

Prologues have their places. I think I see to err in the other side when reading or starting writing, but after pondering on exactly why they are there, I think if done correctly and for the right reasons, then they certainly have a place.

I have a big problem with 'said bookisms', and think a book that is purely he said, she said, is probably going to read flat and boringly monotone for me. Often, maybe, but not every single time. I know everyone says that the writing or speech should convey the emotion behind the words, but sometimes it's not enough (especially with only 2-3 exclamation marks ) Regardless of how it's set up 'Dont tell me what to do,' he said. Has a very different feel to 'Dont tell me what to do,' he screamed, or whispered, or tittered, or mumbled. Or if it is scene in a library where everything has been whispered up until then, you've convey it week in the prose, but then someone get s angry end screams at someone else. How do you convey that with just an exclamition mark or a scraping of a chair.
It's just a pet hate of mine

I'd do mostly agree with the adverbs as speech modifiers though, for exactly the opposite reasons mentioned above. You should be able to tell how he whispered from the scene setting, and the fact that he is whispering. Anything else is unnecessary.

Agree with exclamation marks, but that's just because I don't use them anyway, ever. I never have. I've been told I should use them more so have started putting them in very occasionally. But it doesn't feel right. Probably for the same reasons as the adverbs.

Agre with suddenly and regional dialects. I find them difficult as a reader, even if I know the accent in my head, I still can't read the words (or they've just done it so badly on page that it makes no sense to me). I think Gaskell's North and South is a particular example of this for me, and anything really back then that tried to show the lower classes purely a though lack of pronounced English. They all failed for me.

Avoiding character detail descriptions is another I agree with for the most part, but not consciously. Ive realised I just happen to write without describing the characters, and no one has picked me up on it yet, so that can't be that bad. But I think avoiding the detailed description when first meeting, of everything they wear and do, and look like etc. is a must. Dripping in this information over the next 100k is how it should be done.

Just to contradict my self massively, I love description. I love the world building of scenes described in detail, I want to know the small intricacies of the work, but as long as it doesn't get in the way of the story. I don't mind a whole page of description if someone had just ventured onto a planet of floating bubble lizards for the first time. I don't mind it if while on a quest to the caves of the dragon, POV stops to described the distant mountains and jungles and the whales breaching on the sea. I love that stuff. But I also know that there is a time and place, pacing issues etc.

Hard to find fault with the last point though :notworthy: