A list of 10 rules for writers

There are no rules for good writing except those you make for yourself, and you follow them only because they work, or seem to work, for you. Everything else is mere opinion, or prejudice. Elmore Leonard's death has brought his rules, quickly scrawled on a loose sheet of paper, to our notice. Because he was a good and successful writer, they are interesting and worth considering, so long as you remember that they are his rules, not yours. Anyway, here they are, with comments.

1: "Never open a book with the weather." Why not? Simenon often did, and very effectively too. Weather is a good way to establish mood, atmosphere. Just don't overdo it.

2: "Avoid prologues." Something in this. There's a fashion among crime writers to offer a prologue, sometimes printed in italics, in which an unnamed character performs a grisly act. As a reader I usually skip it. But the prologue to Brideshead Revisited is brilliant and necessary.

3: "Never use a verb other than 'said' to carry dialogue." Excellent advice. Writing "he cried/ shouted/ exclaimed/ objected/ sighed/ expostulated" and such like is an unnecessary stage direction. It suggests you don't trust your dialogue to make its point. Even "he said/she said/John said" is only needed either to establish who is speaking in a passage of dialogue, or to get the rhythm right. Think about rhythm; rhythm matters.

4: "Never use an adverb to modify the verb 'said'." Absolutely. Such adverbs are lazy pointers.

5: "Keep your exclamation points under control." Agreed, unless you are writing in the person of an excitable schoolgirl. If you are, you can spatter your page with them.

6: "Never use the words 'suddenly' or 'All Hell broke loose'." Quite so. Make it happen suddenly or show Hell breaking out.

7: "Use dialect sparingly." No problem of course for those whose characters speak the Queen's English. But generally good advice; a flavour of dialect is often enough.

8: "Avoid detailed descriptions of characters." Yes: one line will usually suffice. We rarely examine a person's face item by item. In any case the reader will form his or her picture, no matter what you write.

9: "Same for places and things." I would agree - because I'm not good at offering this? - but there are writers who do detailed description very well - P D James, for example - and there are readers who dote on descriptive passages. So it's not a good general rule.

10: "Leave out the parts readers tend to skip." Good advice, but how do you know what they will skip? This rule might be better amended: leave out the parts you find boring to write. This isn't always possible.

A passage of exposition may be necessary. You have to find a way of breathing life into it. Hemingway gave three pieces of practical advice. Don't stop when you're stuck; stop when you know what comes next. Always read over what you have already written (as much as is feasible) before you start writing again. Don't think about it when you are not at your desk. That way, he said, your unconscious keeps working on it. The last seems dubious; your unconscious may decline to co-operate, though it does sometimes work - when you've ignored Hemingway's first precept and are stuck.

For my part, I always try to hear what my characters are saying, sounding their words, either in my head or aloud. It's the only way I know to get them speaking right. Every writer makes his own rules, and only a few of them are helpful to others; any general rule is absurd. Prose is good in different ways, just as people are beautiful in different ways.

Elmore Leonard disliked Raymond Chandler's style - all these metaphors and similes offended him. Others delight in them. "Keep your sentences short" is good advice for some; it wouldn't have done for Proust or Henry James.