How’s that for an alliterative title?

Continuing with my favorite writing rules. This should have been #1, but I forgot about it last week. This tip is courtesy of Elmore Leonard, the brilliant and prolific crime writer (yeah, yeah, formerly western writer too — 3:10 to Yuma, anyone?) and his 10 Rules of Writing.

Barely making the list at his tenth slot comes the oh-so-excellent “try to leave out the parts that readers tend to skip.” (Pause a beat for laughter.)

It’s brilliantly simple. And actionable. What parts of a novel do you tend toskip? Dense paragraphs. Long description. The freakin’ weather. But I bet you never skip dialog.

Class dismissed. Back to writing.