{"id":58208,"date":"2013-08-20T15:00:19","date_gmt":"2013-08-20T19:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=58208"},"modified":"2013-08-20T17:08:05","modified_gmt":"2013-08-20T21:08:05","slug":"elmore-leonard-1925-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/08\/20\/elmore-leonard-1925-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Elmore Leonard, 1925\u20132013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Detroit-Author-Elmore-Leonardlarge.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-58209\" alt=\"Detroit-Author-Elmore-Leonardlarge\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Detroit-Author-Elmore-Leonardlarge.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"536\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Detroit-Author-Elmore-Leonardlarge.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Detroit-Author-Elmore-Leonardlarge-300x268.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t like a lot of description. I like to judge for myself what a character looks like from the way he talks. I picked up on that immediately. I thought, That\u2019s the way to go, just keep the characters talking and the reader will discover what they look like. When you are developing your style you avoid weaknesses. I am not good at describing things so I stay away from it. And if anyone is going to describe anything at all, it\u2019s going to be from the point of view of the character, because then I can use his voice and his attitude will be revealed in the way he describes what he sees. I want to remain completely out of it. I don\u2019t want the reader to be aware of me as the writer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/back-issues\/164\">Elmore Leonard<\/a>\u00a0(1925\u20132013), from \u201cComo Conversazione: Criminal Conversations\u201d in our Winter 2002 issue<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI don\u2019t like a lot of description. I like to judge for myself what a character looks like from the way he talks. I picked up on that immediately. I thought, That\u2019s the way to go, just keep the characters talking and the reader will discover what they look like. When you are developing your [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[5460,2598,75],"class_list":["post-58208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-memoriam","tag-deaths","tag-elmore-leonard","tag-writing"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Elmore Leonard, 1925\u20132013 by Sadie Stein<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"August 20, 2013 \u2013 \u201cI don\u2019t like a lot of description. I like to judge for myself what a character looks like from the way he talks. I picked up on that immediately. I\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/08\/20\/elmore-leonard-1925-2013\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Elmore Leonard, 1925\u20132013 by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"August 20, 2013 \u2013 \u201cI don\u2019t like a lot of description. I like to judge for myself what a character looks like from the way he talks. I picked up on that immediately. 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