Words of the wise one

[dianeduane]

And nothing to do with the Havamal, either.

Never open a book with weather.

And so much more. My favorite part:

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 to get the dictionary.

4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said" . . .

. . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances "full of rape and adverbs."

Heh heh.

(Yeah, I slip and do it sometimes. But not very often at all, as this particular lesson was burned into my brain after reading the version of it that James Blish points-and-laughs at in one of his books of SF criticism written as "William Atheling": "'Good morning,' he pole-vaulted.")

Tags: adverbs, they should know their place, Elmore Leonard, James Blish, said-booking

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Link missing:

link (http://www.elmoreleonard.com/index.php?/forums/viewthread/20)

[dduane.livejournal.com]

? It's up there behind the line about the weather, and the link's working for me...

[nelka35.livejournal.com]

If it's infrequent - very infrequent - then it could actually be funny... Like waking up to find the bear in your bed... (hmm, and I think that's funny...) ;)

[cjmr.livejournal.com]

Oddly, when I view your livejournal using my format (skin), the text of the link is not formatting properly. So it doesn't look like a link is there, but if you hover on it the url appears. Weird.

[liadan-m.livejournal.com]

All I can think of with the weather one is, "It was a dark and stormy night..."

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, Bulwer-Lytton. For some inexplicable reason, I haven't won (http://www.shermandorn.com/mt/archives/000303.html) the Bulwer-Lytton Contest (http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/), even though I justified impact used as a transitive verb.

My misreading was equivalent to never read a meteorological treatise. Unfortunately, human activity is making that a requirement of world citizenship.

[lady-autumnstar.livejournal.com]

I quit reading books by one author (who shall remain nameless, and is definitely not the owner of this blog) because her main character "wailed" every line she said. This became irritating very quickly, especially when written in first person.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

the version of it that James Blish points-and-laughs at in one of his books of SF criticism written as "William Atheling"

Amazon popped up The Issue at Hand. Is that it?

[tabbyclaw.livejournal.com]

Very rarely do I notice, care about, or object to "said" variants. The exception to this is Erin Hunter's "Warriors" series in which the characters, cats all, "meow" every line. They're otherwise decent books, but that just makes me want to hunt her down and beat her with a newspaper.

[bodhibird.livejournal.com]

Whenever I come across lists of admonitions like this, I wonder how many of them Dante, Dickens, Homer, Trollope, Austen, or Bronte followed. Those poor misguided novelists of the past, who didn't know the rules of good writing!

[azurelunatic]

One of the (many) things I love about Miles Vorkosigan is that he will, ever so often, carol things. In spite of the author's better intentions.