Less Can Be Better
Leonard Elmore was first known as a pulp western writer, but books and movies followed. (Hombre, Joe Kidd) He followed Hollywood when they abandoned westerns for crime fiction. You probably know Get Shorty, and Mr. Majestky. His last major work combined cowboy flavor with modern country criminals in Justified. (Worth all seven seasons to buy, but it is gritty in a prime time TV sort of way, not an HBO sort of way.)
His major field was print, however, not film and he sold literally millions of books. Pithy, chippy dialogue was his forte earning praise from critics and fellow authors like Stephen King. He is worth finding and reading.
This quote is one of his “Ten Rules for Writing.” It is difficult for our TV generation not to want to write what our minds see, but we can stall the flow of a story with too much description. If you find your descriptions are your favorite part of writing, then you may have lost the plot and the reader along with it. It is what makes Dickens slow.
You can hunt for his other nine rules or just keep reading this blog. I’ll get around to most of them.
