Looking Forward/Looking Back

Since this week is our last class for this session, I thought you might like to have a list of this quarter's prompts, in case you missed one and would like to use it during the break.  Here they are:

• The best gift
• If I knew then what I know now
• An overheard conversation
• A Spokane landmark
• I don't think this ax is sharp enough
• I thought this was supposed to be a vacation
• Cabin fever
• It was a request I wanted to refuse, but I could not  

Here is some timeless writing advice from Elmore Leonard:

Great American novelist Elmore Leonard wrote this in 2001 for the New York Times.

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.

Finally: "My most important rule is one that sums up the 10," he wrote. "If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it."

Thanks to Eva Shaw for sharing this on her blog.