Elmore Leonard (Oct. 11, 1925 - August 20, 2013)

"Elmore Leonard, the prolific crime novelist whose louche characters, deadpan dialogue and immaculate prose style in novels like Get Shorty, Freaky Deaky and Glitz established him as a modern master of American genre writing, died on Tuesday at his home in Bloomfield Village, Mich. He was 87.

     His death was announced on his Web site.
     To his admiring peers, Mr. Leonard did not merely validate the popular crime thriller; he stripped the form of its worn-out affectations, reinventing it for a new generation and elevating it to a higher literary shelf.
     Reviewing Riding the Rap for The New York Times Book Review in 1995, Martin Amis cited Mr. Leonard’s 'gifts — of ear and eye, of timing and phrasing — that even the most indolent and snobbish masters of the mainstream must vigorously covet.'
     As the American chapter of PEN noted, when honoring Mr. Leonard with its Lifetime Achievement award in 2009, his books 'are not only classics of the crime genre, but some of the best writing of the last half-century.'”
— Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times
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Easy On the Adverbs; Hard On the Bad Guys

"In an essay that appeared in The New York Times in 2001, 'Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle,' Elmore Leonard listed his 10 rules of writing. The final one — No. 11, actually — the 'most important rule . . . that sums up the 10,' is 'If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.'
     It’s a terrific rule. In fact, I liked it so much that I passed it on to a creative-writing class I once taught. However, there’s more to it, which I didn’t pass on: 'Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the ­narrative.'
     Jazzy prose that occasionally lets go of 'proper usage' is Leonard’s trademark. He’s a stylist of forward motion, placing narrative acceleration above inconveniences like pronouns and helping verbs. While this creates in most readers a heightened sense of excitement, newcomers may find the transition from complete sentences daunting; it may take a little time to accept Leonard’s prose before you allow it to do its work on you. I’ll admit to having to make such an adjustment when beginning Raylan. At the same time, I’m also a novelist who lives in fear of my copy editor; being such a coward, I can’t help respecting Leonard’s grammatical bravery."
— Olen Steinhauer, The New York Times
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Fiction Rules

Fourteen writers share their lists of writing "rules and regulations" with the Guardian:

3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But "said" is far less intrusive than "grumbled", "gasped", "cautioned", "lied". I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with "she asseverated" and had to stop reading and go to the dictionary. — Elmore Leonard

8. You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You've been backstage. You've seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a ­romantic relationship, unless you want to break up. — Margaret Atwood

7. Imagine that you are dying. If you had a terminal disease would you ­finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys this 10-weeks-to-live self is the thing that is wrong with the book. So change it. Stop arguing with yourself. Change it. See? Easy. And no one had to die. — Anne Enright

5. Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong. — Neil Gaiman

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