Since for the last few days I’ve been kicking around Michigan on this blog I thought I’d pull a quote from Detroit writer Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty, 3:10 to Yuma). In the above video Leonard talks about how he usually starts writing based on characters. (As opposed to Stephen King who usually starts with a situation, or Rod Serling who said he started with theme.)
“Who’s good in this [story] and who’s bad ? That’s the fun of it. Just figure out what’s going to happen. But I do it as I’m writing, so that I don’t stop and try to outline a whole book because that’s a waste of time. Because you’re going to get better ideas much later on…I don’t ever know all the way through what’s going to happen.”
Elmore Leonard
Leonard’s not a great role model if you’re looking for excuses not to write. Have a job? So did Leonard when he was starting out, so he’d wake up at 5 AM to write for a couple of hours before going to his day job. Don’t have the best writing software or even a computer? Leonard started out writing with a pen and a yellow pad—and that’s still how he writes. Check out this link, Elmore Leonard—Schedule and Process.
And as a bonus here’s the first part of a series on Leonard from the TV program World Class Detroiters:
Related posts:
Writing Quote #24 (Elmore Leonard)
Screenwriting Software vs. Ballpoint Pen
The Breakfast Club for Writers
[…] Since for the last few days I’ve been kicking around Michigan on this blog I thought I’d pull a quote from Detroit writer Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty, 3:10 to Yuma). In the above video Leonard talks about how he usually starts writing based on characters. “Who’s good in this [story] and who’s bad ? That’s […] Original Source… […]
I enjoyed this video. Thanks for posting it. Very useful, as always. 🙂
The good ones always make it sound easy, don’t they? Like, just follow a character into interesting places. That’s where the old brain tends to divide all writers.