Last week, we sat down with Kurt Vonnegut and talked rules for writing. He smoked a lot and cracked pistachios, and there was a little green pistachio chip stuck in his moustache during our discussion of rules 4-7, but we had a good time. My hangover the next day \u2026 not so good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, I report on my chat with Elmore Leonard who, to my surprise, spent much of our dialogue wandering around in the costume of an 1812-era naval commander and roaring things like, \u201cMake it so, Mr Webb\u201d and growling about an ill-set mainsail. I had no hangover after that, but my hands did smell of burned gunpowder for some days after.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
El\u2019s rules of writing are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Phooey. That\u2019s silly. Open a book with weather if you want to. I did once, just to annoy him. Take a look at the email subject line if you want to guess what I wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But \u2013 purposeful. Writing about weather can\u2019t be just a way to write yourself into the book. There has to be purpose to it. Purpose to everything always.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, yes\u2013ish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think there are roughly two kinds of prologue. One is just an apology for a boring opening. So you have a battle scene by way of prologue that basically says to the reader, \u201cPlease stick with me over the next 50 pages, because there will be something exciting to follow, I promise.\u201d I have once written a prologue rather like this and for roughly that reason. Big El thundered at me for that one, and promised a \u2018carronade of grapeshot\u2019 if I should do it again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the other sort of prologue is one that changes the meaning of the text the reader is about to read. A classic example here is from Donna Tartt\u2019s A Secret History<\/em>, where the narrator reveals a murder that hasn\u2019t yet taken place. That means the next 100-odd pages are spent thinking, \u2018How does this group of friends collapse to the point at which it murders one of its number?\u201d The book became a Whydunnit, not a Whodunnit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even Big El let that one go without a threat of being fired on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n El, honestly? I mean, yes, mostly use \u2018said\u2019, I agree. But \u2018never\u2019? That\u2019s absurd. So, here\u2019s a bit of Fiona dialogue where I twice use words other than say:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Tea for two,\u2019 I tell<\/u> the waitress.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n She asks if we want anything to eat.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018What do you want, sweetheart?\u2019 I ask<\/u> my companion, but don\u2019t expect, or get, an answer. \u2018A bacon roll, maybe,\u2019 I say to the waitress. \u2018That\u2019d be good.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s ridiculous to suggest either of those verbs feels wrong or wordy or out of place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And OK, now this is silly. I just checked one of my books and \u2013 well, I hardly ever use an adverb, but I did find this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aaron removes my hotel from Caernarfon. \u2018You can\u2019t put a hotel there,\u2019 he says, with an edge of impatience. \u2018You\u2019ve got to get the property first.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Coad\u2019s face undergoes another change or two. Shadows chasing over ocean.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n He says softly, \u2018Because they\u2019re not crazy. And I am. You want to know what I think.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, to be fair, I searched the word \u201csays\u201d, and I started at the beginning, and these were the first examples I found, and the second of them (the first true breach of EL\u2019s rule) was 44,000 words in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So do I breach that rule often? No. Is it fine to breach it occasionally? Of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ha! I thought I was going to agree with that one, but I don\u2019t, or not quite the way Elmore\u2019s telling it here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the same 109,000 word novel I\u2019ve been checking, I found 15 exclamation points. All of those were in dialogue \u2013 things like \u201cDuh!\u201d or \u201cFuck\u2019s sake!\u201d Those things would I think have been just plain mispunctuated without an exclamation point. But outside dialogue? I essentially never use an exclamation point. Two or three per 100K words sounds excessive to me. But inside dialogue? And if the punctuation is there simply to note a manner of speaking rather than as a way to \u2018create\u2019 drama? Well, just use them. No one dies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have definitely never used the phrase \u2018all hell broke\u2019 loose in one of my books. I don\u2019t need to check them to know that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But suddenly? Poor old suddenly? What\u2019s wrong with it. Here\u2019s an example from the same book that involves (sorry) Crime Scene Investigators trying to get an internal body temperature from a heavily frozen corpse:<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end, the CSIs got a power-drill with a 10-mil bit and drove it through Rheon\u2019s frozen back. By the look of it, they had to push through about an inch of frozen crust before getting to the tissue below. When the bit suddenly<\/u> slid into the soft viscera, a splatter of blood and bowel contents spurted out, hitting the CSI across goggles and paper suit. He swore. I laughed. Watkins looked angry and impatient, which is probably just her way of laughing<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now that\u2019s not a way to add fake drama to a scene. It\u2019s just a way to explain the movement of a drill bit that moved first slow, then fast. The word is perfectly OK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s now four rules which are basically silly and the two before that were dubious. What does that teach us? Well, that a genuinely great writer may end up saying some slightly silly things when paid to write a column for the New York Times. That doesn\u2019t make him less of a writer, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is true. There\u2019s a modern tact here, which works well. Accents shouldn\u2019t be denoted phonetically (So \u201cEet ees \u2019orrible, no?<\/em>\u201d sounds, today, like an incredibly patronising and diminishing way to write French-accented speech, for example.) But that\u2019s about the phonetic transcription of an accent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But if you have a character who uses regional dialect \u2013 then what is that character meant to speak other than that dialect? I had a character, Caff, a sailor who was born and bred on the Orkney Isles. I had him speak Orcadian, which is like a deep Scottish mixed with Viking and left to simmer for 1000 years. So we had chunks of speech like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n That [turning the ship] sounds straightforward enough but Caff, who explains all this, is clearly anxious about the<\/em> manoeuvre. \u2018Thoo dohnt wahnt tae be skelp while turning,\u2019 he says, as his hands show a big wave hitting the ship side-on as it turns. \u2018If tha\u2019 happens, we\u2019ll hae oor bahookie in th\u2019 sky in twa shakes o\u2019 a hoor\u2019s fud.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not going to translate that because there\u2019s language there to make a matron\u2019s ears blush rosy pink, but if you want a regional dialect, then use a damn regional dialect. Just honour it, and don\u2019t patronise it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hmm. Well, I think that\u2019s a little evasive, isn\u2019t it? Any worthwhile description of anything finds its substance in the detail. So if I say, \u201cShe was five foot six, with dark shoulder length hair, and looked to be in her thirties,\u201d I\u2019ve given you three data points that amount to almost nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But if I mention her \u201cwhatever-you-want smile\u201d and say nothing about height or hair colour, you already have something \u2013 because of the detail. So maybe Leonard is saying, \u201cDon\u2019t just yammer on forever about how someone looks\u201d, and OK, that\u2019s true \u2013 but you shouldn\u2019t yammer on forever about anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s a wee passage with two ultra-brief character descriptions that do use details but don\u2019t yammer on. Both micro-descriptions are just fine:<\/p>\n\n\n\n [Julie-Ann says,] \u201cThen, I wasn\u2019t sure, did you want to see Mr Coad?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr Coad.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n War hero. Nutjob. Prisoner.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n No, I do not want to see Mr Coad. I want to get the fuck out of here and to never come back.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t say anything.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Julie-Ann hovers, a whatever-you-want smile fixed in place.<\/u><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t even know how people like that maintain those smiles, those attitudes. I mean, I\u2019m perfectly able to make nice with people, but if I offer them something \u2013 coffee or tea? do you want to see Jared Coad, yes or no? \u2013 I sort of expect them to make up their minds. I won\u2019t just offer that wide, bland, take-as-long-as-you-want smile and keep it there.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I stare. Keep staring. And, when even J-A\u2019s confidence starts to wobble, say, \u2018Yes. Please. Jared Coad. Great.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Julie-Ann shows me a place to make tea. Takes me down to the hospital kitchen, where a youth, late teens or very early twenties, finds me a sachet of porridge. The guy has a chest broad enough to fit a Lowland ox and the sachet is tiny in his hands<\/u><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I presented that passage to Elmore Leonard, he read intently, then looked away, then roared at a Captain of Marines to attend to his station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said”\u2026he admonished gravely.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n