Elmore Leonard: Leave Out the Part Readers Skip

By Dr Dan

Be honest. When you read a novel, do you ever skip? Maybe your eyes slide past a long paragraph about the wallpaper, or you flip ahead to see when somebody finally says something. Almost every reader does it. Elmore Leonard, the crime and Western writer behind Get Shorty and Hombre, built one of the most useful writing rules ever printed around that simple habit.

The advice

In 2001, Leonard wrote a short piece for The New York Times series "Writers on Writing." In it he listed ten rules he had picked up over the years. He said they helped him "remain invisible" when he was writing a book, so the reader would see the story instead of the writer. The last rule is the one I come back to most:

"Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip."— Elmore Leonard, The New York Times, July 16, 2001

He then explained what he meant: "Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them." And he added a line every writer should tape above the desk: "I'll bet you don't skip dialogue."

Then he summed up all ten rules in one sentence:

"If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it."

What it means

Leonard wasn't saying description is bad, or that a story should be nothing but talk. He was saying that the reader's attention is precious, and every paragraph has to earn its place.

The parts readers skip usually have something in common. The writer is showing off, explaining too much, or telling us what a character is thinking when we already know, or don't care. Leonard had a funny word for that kind of decorative prose. He borrowed it from John Steinbeck: "hooptedoodle."

His other rules point the same way. Don't open a book with weather just to set the mood. Go easy on exclamation points. Don't bury the action under long descriptions of people, places, and things. Each one is a way of getting out of the story's way.

Four ways to cut the part readers skip

1. Read your draft like a reader, not a writer. Print a chapter or read it on a different screen. Make a small mark in the margin anywhere your own attention drifts. Those marks are your map. If you're tempted to skim your own work, a stranger certainly will.

2. Look for the thick paragraphs. Leonard said you can see them before you even read them. Scan your pages for big gray blocks of text. Not every one is a problem, but every one deserves a second look. Could it be half as long? Could some of it become a line of dialogue or a single action?

3. Trust your dialogue. Readers lean in when people talk. If a scene feels slow, try letting the characters carry it. Use "said," keep the tags simple, and let what people say, and what they leave unsaid, do the work.

4. Listen for "writing." Read your sentences out loud. When one sounds like it's trying to impress somebody, it probably is. Rewrite it in plain words, the way you'd tell it to a friend across the kitchen table.

How it applies to historical fiction

This rule matters a lot to anyone who writes about real history. When you've spent months reading about a war or a time period, you want to share everything you learned. I understand that pull. At the End of Hardship is set against the real conflict between President Truman and General MacArthur during the Korean War, and For a Woman's Love follows a helicopter door gunner in Vietnam. There's a mountain of history behind stories like these.

But the reader didn't pick up a novel to sit through a lecture. The history belongs in the story, in what the characters see, fear, and decide, not in long paragraphs the reader will skip to get back to the people. Leonard's rule is a good test: if a passage of research would make you flip ahead as a reader, it needs to be cut, shortened, or turned into a scene.

Your challenge this week

Pick one chapter or scene you've already written. Read it through once and mark every spot where you'd be tempted to skim. Then cut at least one of those spots completely, and rewrite another as dialogue or a single action. Read the scene again and see whether it moves faster.

If you'd like, tell me in the comments what you cut. Sometimes the hardest paragraph to lose is the one that makes the whole story better.

Keep going

Good writing isn't about how many words you can put on the page. It's about keeping the reader turning pages. Leave out the part they'd skip, and they won't want to put your story down.

If you're looking for something to read tonight, you'll find my free short stories here on the site, and my novels At the End of Hardship and For a Woman's Love are on Amazon. And if your club, library, or group would enjoy a talk on writing or the history behind my stories, you can book me for a free talk.

Keep reading, keep writing, and keep it moving.