ELMORE LEONARD THE DICKENS OF DETROIT

Elmore Leonard - October 11, 1925 - August 20, 2013

Unfortunately, one of the best modern writers, and one of the few writers who's writing successfully translated to the big and the small screens, passed away today following a recent stroke.   Leonard was 87.

Few writers leave behind such a large and influential breadth of work.  Most people that consider themselves writers can measure their work in "inches;" that is to say if printed out on standard paper, the work would only stand a few inches high.  Leonard's work would stand several feet tall. Stephen King called Leonard "The Great American writer."  Commended by critics for his gritty realism and strong dialogue, Leonard sometimes took liberties with grammar in the interest of speeding along the story.

There's been a lot written about Leonard's work over the years, but here are some video snippets where he speaks about writing in his own words.

Elmore Leonard on Writing

"words can get in the way of what you're trying to say"

Leonard's work stretched from writing westerns in the 1950's all the way to "Justified."

Year	Novel	Film Adaptation
1953	The Bounty Hunters	
1954	The Law at Randado	1990 – Border Shootout
1956	Escape from Five Shadows	
1959	Last Stand at Saber River	1997 – Last Stand at Saber River
1961	Hombre	1967 – Hombre
1969	The Big Bounce	1969 – The Big Bounce  2004 – The Big Bounce
	The Moonshine War	1970 – The Moonshine War
1970	Valdez Is Coming	1971 – Valdez Is Coming
1972	Forty Lashes Less One	
1974	Mr. Majestyk	1974 – Mr. Majestyk
	52 Pick-Up	1984 – The Ambassador  1986 – 52 Pick-Up
1976	Swag	
1977	Unknown Man No. 89	
	The Hunted	
1978	The Switch	
1979	Gunsights	
1980	City Primeval	
	Gold Coast	1997 TV film
1981	Split Images	1992 TV movie
1982	Cat Chaser	1989 – Cat Chaser
1983	Stick	1985 – Stick
	LaBrava Edgar Award, Best Novel (1984)	
1985	Glitz	1988 TV film
1987	Bandits	
	Touch	1997 film – Touch
1988	Freaky Deaky	2012 – Freaky Deaky
1989	Killshot	2009 – Killshot
1990	Get Shorty	1995 – Get Shorty
1991	Maximum Bob	1998 TV series
1992	Rum Punch	1997 – Jackie Brown
1993	Pronto	1997 TV film  2010 – TV series Justified
1995	Riding the Rap	2010 – TV series Justified
1996	Out of Sight	1998 – Out of Sight  2003 – TV series Karen Sisco
	Naked Came the Manatee (One chapter of serial novel)	
1998	Cuba Libre	
	Tonto Woman (One chapter of serial novel)	2007 – Academy Awards nominated Live Action Short
1999	Be Cool	2005 – Be Cool
2000	Pagan Babies	
2001	Fire in the Hole	2010 – TV series Justified
2002	When the Women Come Out to Dance Anthology (includes Fire in the Hole)	
	Tishomingo Blues	
2004	A Coyote's in the House	
2004	Mr. Paradise	
2005	The Hot Kid	
2006	Comfort to the Enemy Published serially in New York Times  (Chapters can be downloaded at www.elmoreleonard.com)	
2007	Up in Honey's Room	
2009	Road Dogs	
2010	Djibouti	
2012	Raylan	2010 – TV series Justified

Leonard influenced a great number of writers and directors in Hollywood, most famously, Quentin Tarantino who would later translate "Rum Punch" into the movie "Jackie Brown."

From The Charlie Rose Show, October 14, 1994

QUENTIN TARANTINO: Oh, I love Elmore Leonard. In fact, to me True Romance is basically like an Elmore Leonard movie-

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah 

QUENTIN TARANTINO: -that he didn’t write, you know. And like, actually, I actually owe a big debt to like kind of figuring out my style from Elmore Leonard because, you know, he was the first writer I’d ever read - and, but also like Charles Willeford did it as well - but he was one of the first writers I had ever read that just let mundane conversations-

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.

QUENTIN TARANTINO: -actually inform the characters, you know, and then all of a sudden, ‘Boof!,’ you know, you’re into whatever story you’re telling. But the thing is, though, it’s just a genre I’ve always really liked and always had a lot of appreciation for and liked going to, and I thought I would do a good job with it.

Tarantino full interview on Charlie Rose

Leonard's final successful novel to T.V. translation was his most successful, as Justified enters its fifth season with showrunner Graham Yost at the helm.

Q:      Graham, how did you go about assembling the writing staff — because Elmore’s voice is so distinct and he has so many fans out there — so they have that same voice?

Graham Yost:        You know, it was a lot of guesswork because there weren’t many writing samples that really showed the mixture of tension and humor and sudden violence and sort of quirky character that, you know, I was looking for to try and, you know, keep Elmore’s voice alive in the show. You know, the first writer I hired was Fred Golan because I’ve been working with him since “Boomtown” and I know he can do just about anything. And then there was a writer, Wendy Calhoun, off of “Raines,” who I also felt could do pretty much anything, had a great sense of humor and good sense of, you know, odd and interesting characters that we would like. But the big thing we did is when we started the writing room, we bought as many of Elmore’s books as we could find and, you know, divided them up so everyone, well, took a couple on and read them so they would get into the rhythms and get the style. You know, one of the great things that I got to do in writing the pilot was actually retype a lot of Elmore’s style on I can just put it in the script. I mean, it was interesting. Just the act of retyping it sort of let me, you know, get into the language a little bit more, what he leaves out, what he puts in, that kind of thing.

Q:      Okay. And Mr. Leonard, how did it feel to see your characters come to life on a weekly television series? I know a lot of your, you know, characters have been movies, but how about TV series?

Elmore Leonard:   Well, it is the first time it’s been successful, and it was great. I tune in every Tuesday night. I’ve seen a few of them before, but… I thought the one last night was terrific (in the styling)… there was action all the way. Good story and suspense. I’m not kidding. It’s so – it’s passed me by.

Graham Yost:        And I will just say very simply we’ve gotten a lot of great reviews, but that there is the best review we’ve gotten on the show. And Elmore has been the most gratifying thing, the fact that he’s enjoyed this process.

ELMORE LEONARD’S 10 RULES OF WRITING

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” … he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

"My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it." He also hinted: "Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip."