Years ago Elmore Leonard, the acclaimed novelist of Westerns and crime fiction (Hombre, Three-Ten to Yuma, Get Shorty) wrote a short article for the New York Times called the 10 Rules of Writing. I discovered the article at the public library in the form of a book, a ridiculous book with vast areas of white space intermittently tricked out with pen and ink drawings. To pad the article's sparse text out to book length, the publisher sprinkled only a handful of words per page and went to the desperate measure of using paper stock as thick as the cardboard sheet that stiffens a packaged dress shirt.
Putting my disdain for the publishing silliness aside, I can recommend Leonard's rules as providing good guidance for writers aspiring to write taut action novels. Here are his rules about dialogue and adverbs:
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3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said" ...
... he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances "full of rape and adverbs."
5. Keep your exclamation points under control.
6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
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To illustrate the validity of these rules, I offer some excerpts from the old Tom Swift books, which flout these rules repeatedly.
An example from Tom Swift and His Great Search Light (1912):
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Suddenly the silence of the night was broken by a distant humming and throbbing sound.
"Hark!" cried Ned.
They all listened intently.
"That's an airship, sure enough!" cried Tom.
He sprang to the lever that moved the lantern, which had been shut off temporarily. An instant later a beam of light cut the darkness. The throbbing sounded nearer.
"There they are!" cried Ned, pointing from a window toward the sky. A moment later, right into the glare of the light, there shot a powerful biplane.
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Here's an example from Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle (1910):
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The wind carried to Tom the sound of the explosions of the motor, and he could see the man clinging tightly to the handle-bars. The rider was almost in front of Tom's house now, when, with a suddenness that caused the lad to utter an exclamation of alarm, the stranger turned his machine right toward a big oak tree.
"What's he up to?" cried Tom excitedly. "Does he think he can climb that, or is he giving an exhibition by showing how close he can come and not hit it?"
A moment later the motor-cyclist struck the tree a glancing blow. The man went flying over the handle-bars, the machine was shunted to the ditch along the road, and falling over on one side the motor raced furiously. The rider lay in a heap at the foot of the tree.
"My, that was a smash!" cried Tom. "He must be killed!" and bending forward, he raced toward the scene of the accident.
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And, finally, here's an example from Tom Swift and His Electric Runabout (1910), featuring the great-grandfather of the Chevy Volt:
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He turned on the current. There was a low, humming purr, which gradually increased to a whine, and the car moved slowly forward. It rolled along the gravel driveway to the road, Tom listened to every sound of the machinery, as a mother listens to the breathing of a child.
"She's moving!" he cried.
"But not much faster than a wheelbarrow," said his father, who sometimes teased his son.
"Wait!" cried the youth.
Tom turned more current into the motor. The purring and humming increased, and the car seemed to leap forward. It was in the road now, and, once assured that the steering apparatus was working well, Tom suddenly turned on much more speed.
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