Emy's Book Blog

Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing, firstly, is a valuable little book with some solid rules for making writing better.

Key word here: little. This book is only about a hundred pages long, but there is only text on every other page, and only a short paragraph where there is text. For me, this is not a bad thing. It just means that a lot of the waffle you normally get in writing guides is cut out and only the bare bones - the actual rules - are brought to the forefront. I can see why it could be irksome if you had paid a lot of money for the book yourself, but, as I received it for a Christmas present, this aspect did not bother me.

It was a useful little read to refresh on some of the more common sense rules of writing: don't overuse synonyms of said, don't pepper your work with exclamation marks, etc.

But what really made the book for me was Leonard's eleventh rule: 'If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.' I never thought of it that way before, so it is definitely something I will be watching out for with my own writing.

I also enjoyed the illustrations by Joe Ciardiello, which helped to highlight and separate the rules nicely.

I would definitely recommend reading this book if you're any sort of writer, just because it is a good collections of some of the basics of writing. I would probably recommend borrowing it from the library or off a friend, though, because it is very short.

Also, hooptedoodle. :)