Elmore Leonard
Elmore Leonard
Elmore John Leonard, Jr.was an American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. His earliest novels, published in the 1950s, were Westerns, but he went on to specialize in crime fiction and suspense thrillers, many of which have been adapted into motion pictures...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth11 October 1925
CityNew Orleans, LA
CountryUnited States of America
leave parts people
I try to leave out the parts that people skip.
crime good influenced john lasted learned people short stories truth whose writers
The truth is that the writers who most influenced me weren't people categorized as crime writers. I'd say I learned more from John O'Hara, who isn't much read today but whose short stories I really admired, and Hemingway, who I think has lasted pretty good.
computers
I can write anywhere. But I don't use a computer, and I could never write on a laptop. I hate the sound of computers; it's too dull, like it's not doing anything for you.
finally gives guy name older shut talk trouble
I do this a lot with names. I'll start with a name, and then for some reason he won't talk much, or he's older than I pictured him just because of a name I give him. So then I finally get the right name, and I can't shut the guy up. This always happens. There's always a character who gives me trouble that way.
cracked gets messed
Writing on the beach is not what it's cracked up to be. The sand blows, and you perspire, and the page gets all blotty and messed up, so I don't do that anymore.
annoying prologue introduction
Avoid Prologues. They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword.
waste stories short-story
I still read Hemingway. I still read his short stories because they're so good. He doesn't waste any words.
romantic-love looks too-late
It's like seeing someone for the first time, and you look at each other for a few seconds, and there's this kind of recognition like you both know something. Next moment the person's gone, and it's too late to do anything about it.
sound doe make-sense
It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.
anybody ask certain decide hear people type whatever
When people ask me about my dialogue, I say, 'Don't you hear people talking?' That's all I do. I hear a certain type of individual, I decide this is what he should be, whatever it is, and then I hear him. Well, I don't hear anybody that I can't make talk.