As an unapologetic fan of Robert Jordan's wordy, adjective-y and adverb-y neverending Wheel of Time series, I'm rather annoyed by
this list of writing tips by some dude named Elmore Leonard. Not only have I never heard of him, his advice--to borrow from Keeley--stinks. Linked from
Diane Duane's LJ feed, the list tells me some good things and some annoyingly bad.
First, the good.
Opening a book with weather. Besides those of us who live in mayonnaise jars, we've probably all seen Snoopy sitting on his doghouse, beginning the next Great American Novel with "It was a dark and stormy night..." I saw it successfully used as an opening to Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. Didn't bother me, and made me associate the opening of the book with happy memories. Its first usage was as follows:
"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."
--Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)
I think the rules were a bit different in the 1830s...
Anyway. Writers of bad fanfic overuse exclamation points. If I'm writing something myself, I'm overly paranoid about how many exclamation points I'm using per usage. No problem there.
Dialects were the bane of my attempting to read Huckleberry Finn in high school when the siren call of an unfinished fantasy novel was constantly on my mind. I just couldn't make enough headway to feel that I was getting through the story, so I regrettably gave up and went back to my beloved fantasy novels.
Now for the bad.
Avoidance of prologues won't work. As I said, I like the Wheel of Time series. Its prologue intrigued me enough that I waited through the infamous Tolkienesque first one hundred pages to get to the action and while I may complain that a one hundred page prologue is not a prologue, I don't much care what they call it as long as it's entertaining.
There is nothing wrong with using synonyms for said. In fact, I find it dry and dull to read nothing but "he said," or "'I feel blah,' said Ender." This is not, however, an invitation to go insane and use terrible word choice such as "asseverate" and "rasp" in its place. Adverbs with said are also not necessarily a bad thing; let us remember such wisdom as Everything In Moderation. People whisper and shout, they have scratchy, squeaky, deep voices.
Another point I'd love to destroy is not giving detailed descriptions of people, places, or things. Then your prose is simply lacking and dull. If I wanted an entire work of nothing but dialogue, I'd go read a movie script and skip the action. I want meaty descriptions wherein I might taste of the fat of how a human looks with my potatoes of how they speak and what they say. And potatoes come in varities, just as salads and other parts of a meal--just as writing does. But prescriptive rules such as these (see prescriptive grammar: naught but do's and don't's) take all the fun out of reading.
Also, how are people who draw fan art to have any idea what someone looks like if they talk like everyone else? Tell me she has brown hair always held up in a messy ponytail, but again, don't go overboard and tell me that her auburn tresses were washed every Thursday with the most expensive pet shampoo known to man. And I'd like to know if she wears kid gloves and a skirt or if she's more into women's lib and as such refuses to wear anything but stone-washed jeans. You see?
Diane Duane may agree with his advice, but she's not above using words other than said herself and giving quick descriptions of her characters. So I'm left rather confused with her cheerful support of the entire thing. Oh well.