In honour of Elmore Leonard, who has died after having a stroke, I thought I’d take a look at his 10 rules of writing, so many of which I agree with wholeheartedly (especially numbers three and six). 

Leonard was a talented writer who’ll be missed, but he has left us with his lessons and words of wisdom, which will be around for a long time.

For a more detailed extract from his book 10 Rules of Writing, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, click here.

In the meantime here’s a summary of the 10:

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”.
5 Keep your exclamation points ­under control.
6 Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose”.
7 Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8 Avoid detailed descriptions of characters, which Steinbeck covered.
9 Don’t go into great detail describing places and things, unless you’re ­Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language.
10 Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.