For the last few weeks I’ve been plodding through yet another draft of Carnival Time, and I’m bored with my story and with trying to fix it. Writing feels creative. Editing is tedium. I’ll be finished with this draft in a few days, and then I’m moving on to another project until I can stand to be around Tony and Daphne again.
Re-writing is a kind of limbo. It’s a mechanical process and for me it sucks out the creative juices. I find satisfaction in making a sentence better, but there’s not much joy in it.
I’m on several mailing lists for writers and this morning there was something in my in-box that just made me want to throw up my hands and walk away from the computer. The item was a list of 10 writing tips from Elmore Leonard, a prolific and talented writer whose work I have enjoyed for many years.
Here they are:
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.
As a first-time novelist, who has so much to learn, I mentally ran through Mr. Leonard’s checklist against my own work.
Item one: I’m on solid ground here since I didn’t begin with “It was a dark and stormy night.” Hooray for me.
Item two: I have a prologue of sorts. Uh oh.
Item three: I already knew the rule but violate it early and often in my book.
Item four: Another rule I’ve broken many times, even though I’ve cut way back on this sin in the last two rounds.
Item five: I think I’m okay on this one, but I'm certain my 95,000 words of prose have more than the three exclamation points allowed.
Item six: Ouch and ouch again!
Item seven: I’m in big trouble here.
Item eight: I think I’m okay on this one, mostly through incompetence.
Item nine: A mixed bag, but I can think of some examples in my story.
Item ten: How would I know if I broke this rule? I didn’t skip any of it when I wrote it.
So, of the nine rules I can comprehend, I have broken at least seven of them. I’m going to endeavor to spend the rest of the day out of the vicinity of sharp objects.
“Shoot fire! Suddenly it’s a gloomy fog-bound day in Suburbingham,” the six foot, blue eyed, gray haired, fifty-year-old myopic writer exclaimed weakly!!!!
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