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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/elmore.jpg]]
2
3->''Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.''
4-->-- Elmore Leonard's Rule #10 of writing
5
6Elmore John Leonard Jr. (October 11, 1925 – August 20, 2013) was an American novelist and screenwriter. He started as a writer of Westerns, but switched to whodunits and modern pulp fiction, where he got the most acclaim. Several of his novels have been adapted to screen, both big and small, and he also wrote a few screenplays. His career spanned six decades, and he continued working up until his death.
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8He's known as "The [[Creator/CharlesDickens Dickens]] of UsefulNotes/{{Detroit}}" for his catchy, intimate descriptions of the people of that city (he lived in the Detroit suburbs). Author wannabes should definitely read up on him. His prose style and ear for dialogue are worth checking out for inspiration. Kingsley Amis once told him, "Your prose makes Creator/RaymondChandler look clumsy."
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10Also worth checking out by author wannabes is his [[http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/16/arts/writers-writing-easy-adverbs-exclamation-points-especially-hooptedoodle.html Ten Rules of Writing]]. To sum up briefly: knock it off with the PurpleProse.
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12Sadly, he was struck down by stroke and died at his home in Detroit from complications of the stroke.
13
14----
15[[folder:Works]]
16!!Some of his better-known works:
17* "Three-Ten to Yuma" (short story, 1953): adapted for the big screen [[Film/ThreeTenToYuma1957 in 1957]] and again [[Film/ThreeTenToYuma2007 in 2007]]
18* "The Captives" (short story, 1955): adapted for the big screen as ''Film/TheTallT'' in 1957
19* ''Last Stand at Saber River'' (1959): on the small screen in 1997 starring Tom Selleck
20* ''Hombre'' (1961): [[Film/{{Hombre}} big screen in 1967]], starring Paul Newman
21* ''The Big Bounce'': written in 1969, adapted for the big screen that same year before the novel was released, then re-adapted for the big screen in 2004.
22* ''The Moonshine War'' (1969): big screen in 1970
23* ''Valdez is Coming'' (1970): [[Film/ValdezIsComing big screen in 1971]]
24* ''Film/MrMajestyk'' (1974): big screen the same year, starring Creator/CharlesBronson
25* ''52 Pick-Up'' (1974): big screen in 1986
26* ''Swag'' (1976)
27* ''Unknown Man No. 89'' (1977)
28* ''The Hunted'' (1977)
29* ''The Switch'' (1978): Famously the book that Creator/QuentinTarantino accidentally shoplifted as a kid. Big screen in 2013 as ''Life of Crime''.
30* ''Gunsights'' (1979)
31* ''Literature/CityPrimeval'' (1980)
32* ''Literature/SplitImages'' (1981)
33* ''Literature/CatChaser'' (1982)
34* ''Stick'' (1983): made into a movie in 1985, directed by and starring Creator/BurtReynolds
35* ''La Brava'' (1983): won an Edgar Award
36* ''Glitz'' (1985)
37* ''Bandits'' (1987)
38* ''Touch'' (1987)M
39* ''Freaky Deaky'' (1988)
40* ''Killshot'' (1989): [[Film/{{Killshot}} big screen in 2008]]
41* ''Get Shorty'' (1990): [[Film/GetShorty big screen in 1995]]
42* ''Maximum Bob'' (1991): made into a short-lived 1998 TV series
43* ''Rum Punch'' (1992): [[Film/JackieBrown big screen in 1997]]
44* ''Literature/{{Pronto}}'' (1993): partially adapted into ''Series/{{Justified}}''
45* ''Literature/RidingTheRap'' (1995): adapted into the third episode of ''Series/{{Justified}}''
46* ''Out of Sight'' (1996): [[Film/OutOfSight big screen in 1998]]
47* ''Cuba Libre'' (1998)
48* ''Be Cool'' (1999): [[Film/BeCool big screen in 2005]]
49* ''Pagan Babies'' (2000)
50* ''Fire in the Hole'' (2001): made into 2010 TV series ''{{Series/Justified}}''
51* ''Tishomingo Blues'' (2002): Leonard's favorite of his own work
52* ''Mr. Paradise'' (2004)
53* ''A Coyote's in the House'' (2004)
54* ''The Hot Kid'' (2005)
55* ''Comfort to the Enemy'' (2006)
56* ''Up in Honey's Room'' (2007)
57* ''Road Dogs'' (2009)
58* ''Djibouti'' (2010)
59* ''Raylan'' (2012): several plot elements were adapted into ''Series/{{Justified}}''
60
61!!He also wrote some screenplays that were not based on one of his novels:
62* ''Film/JoeKidd'' (1972), starring Creator/ClintEastwood
63* ''The Rosary Murders'' (1987), starring Creator/DonaldSutherland and an uncredited [[Music/TheWhiteStripes Jack White]] (as an [[PlayingAgainstType altar boy]]!)
64[[/folder]]
65----
66!!Tropes featured in his work:
67* ActionGirl: Series/KarenSisco is a strong, independent, and sometimes ''very violent'' leading lady.
68** Most of his other works include women who are quite capable at what they do, whether it's figuring out TheCaper or handling themselves in a fight.
69* AffablyEvil: A good number of bad guys will be quite charming and chatty with you, up until the guns come out and TheCaper is underway.
70* AntiHero: The main characters of a novel that happen to be law enforcement - hi, [=Raylan=]! - may have a few problems playing by the rules...
71* AntiVillain: The main characters of a novel that happen to be on the bad side of the law may have a few [[HiddenDepths rules]] [[EvenEvilHasStandards they follow themselves]] that make them sometimes more trustworthy and noble than the cops hunting them.
72* BankRobbery: Jack Foley, in ''Out of Sight'' and ''Road Dogs'', is a GentlemanThief bank robber, who never used a gun on a job and still robbed more than 250 banks.
73* BlackAndGrayMorality: Less between the Cops and Robbers - although the occasional {{Dirty Cop}}s may show up - than between the members of any given scheme going down, often between the {{Anti Villain}}s who just want to get the job done and the villains willing to wipe out everybody without a care.
74* CasualDangerDialogue: Leonard was a master of cool chatter.
75* ChekhovsGun: The ice-cream cone in ''The Hot Kid''.
76* ConspicuouslyPublicAssassination: In ''Pronto'', mob hitman Tommy Bucks lampshades the fact that he can walk into a crowded restaurant, shoot his target in the head and then walk out without any witnesses being able to fully identify him. It is implied that he killed people like this in the past but the one time he tries to do so in the book he is instead met by US Marshal Raylan Givens. Raylan plays out his own version of this trope since he is perfectly willing to gun down Tommy in a public place even if Tommy does not draw his gun first. Tommy murdered a man right in front of Raylan and was not charged with the crime so Raylan is determined to prove to Tommy that ultimately one cannot get away with committing a murder in front of a US Marshal.
77* ContinuityNod: While not especially known for recurring "series characters," readers will often encounter recurring characters. Often a minor character from an earlier novel will be a main character in a later book, or vice versa. One can make a game out of tracking Elmore Leonard's minor characters from work to work:
78** ''Road Dogs'' unites characters from ''Out of Sight'', ''La Brava'', and 1995's ''Riding the Rap''.
79** Jack Foley in ''Out Of Sight'' and ''Road Dogs'' novels gets hit with hard time thanks to the judge from ''Maximum Bob''.
80** Ray Nicolette pops up in both ''Rum Punch'' and ''Out of Sight''. When Creator/MichaelKeaton played Ray in ''Film/JackieBrown'' (retitled from ''Rum Punch'') he also cameoed as the character later when ''Out of Sight'' got made into a film.
81** U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, currently appearing on TV's ''Series/{{Justified}}'', was the lead character in ''Literature/{{Pronto}}'' and ''Riding the Rap'' before being reassigned to Kentucky in the short story "Fire in the Hole," on which the series is technically based.
82** Marshall Sisco appears in both ''Literature/CatChaser'' and ''Out of Sight''.
83** Different members of the Crowe family appear in ''Gold Coast'', ''Maximum Bob'', ''Pronto'', and ''Riding the Rap''.
84** Jimmy Cap, the GreaterScopeVillain of ''Literature/CatChaser'', reappears in ''Literature/{{Pronto}}''.
85** Ernest "Stick" Stickley Jr. appears in both ''Swag'' and ''Stick''.
86* CreatorsOddball: His short novel ''Touch'' seems glaringly out of place as a supernatural thriller compared with the rest of his collection of crime novels.
87* FBIAgent: The plot of ''Pronto'' starts off because an FBI agent wants to build a racketeering case against a Miami mobster. He tries to pressure a local bookie into testifying against the mobster by making it seem like the bookie was stealing from the mob. However, by the time people start getting killed because of this scheme, the FBI agent had decided that the mobster is too small-time and abandons the investigation. It is up to US Marshal Raylan Givens to clean up the mess the FBI has created.
88* GentlemanThief: Jack Foley, from ''Out of Sight'' and ''Road Dogs''. While he worked as a bank robber, he made a point of never using a gun while robbing more banks than anyone else in the FBI databanks.
89* GoodIsNotSoft: In ''Pronto'', Italian-born mafioso Tommy Bucks considers Americans to be soft and prides himself on being a hard man who can kill someone in cold blood without a second thought. US Marshal Raylan Givens is an honest American police officer and thus Tommy assumes that Raylan is ultimately soft. He holds unto this belief until the very end when he finally realizes that Raylan is quite willing and capable of just shooting Tommy dead in the middle of a crowded restaurant.
90* HangingJudge: Maximum Bob
91* HelloAttorney: Carolyn Wilder in ''City Primeval''.
92* HillbillyMoonshiner: Son Martin in ''The Moonshine War''.
93* HonorAmongThieves: Leonard might underscore a caper plot by having one or two of the crooks running their own scam against the others, or scheming to end up with all the loot with the others either dead or framed for the caper.
94* KudzuPlot: The beauty of Leonard's prose is that it tends to un-complicate complicated plots. (Check out ''La Brava''.)
95* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Reverend Dawn Navarro from ''Riding the Rap'' and ''Road Dogs''. A lot of her fortune telling is based on understandable deductive reasoning or just information she secretly already had, but she makes enough accurate statements without such methods to make you wonder.
96* OnlyInFlorida: While UsefulNotes/{{Detroit}} gets a lot of love, Elmore also sets a lot of action in Florida.
97* OrganTheft: ''Raylan'' features a couple crooks doing this, but in a variation they're not selling the organs to others, but essentially holding them hostage for money from the person they were taken from, bypassing the whole comparability issue.
98* ThePlan: He's got a funny way of making them ''seem'' pretty simple.
99* PretenderDiss: In ''Pronto'', Nicky is a mobster wannabe who bluffed his way into a job with a small-time Miami mob boss. When he and ProfessionalKiller Tommy Bucks go to Italy, Tommy and the Italian mafiosi quickly realize how big a poser Nicky is and insult him to his face. Since Nicky does not know Italian, it takes him days to understand that he is being insulted.
100* PurpleProse: Averted. Definitely not BeigeProse, though.
101* SaidBookism: Averted. One of Leonard's "Ten Rules" advises against this.
102* {{Sequel}}: ''Literature/GetShorty'' is one of the few of his novels to receive the full sequel treatment, with ''Literature/BeCool''.
103** Also ''Road Dogs'' and the Raylan novels/short stories.
104** ''Rum Punch'' brings back the characters of Ordell, Louis, and Melanie from ''The Switch''--making the 2014 film ''Life Of Crime'' a prequel of sorts to ''Film/JackieBrown''.
105* SharedUniverse: Most of his crime novels are set in the same universe, and even minor characters can reappear in a completely unrelated book.
106* ShowWithinAShow: "Mr. Lovejoy" from ''Get Shorty''. "It will be my ''Driving Miss Daisy''".
107* ASimplePlan: In ''Swag'' and ''Rum Punch'', it goes predictably awry.
108* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: In ''Split Images'', Detroit homicide detective Bryan Hurd is an obvious stand-in for Detroit homicide detective Raymond Cruz. Cruz appeared in some of Leonard's prior work, which was being optioned at the time.
109* TooDumbToLive: His villains typically have at least one [[StupidCrooks comically incompetent member]] in the group, though it's even odds if it's actually their fault when they lose.
110* USMarshal: Several recurring characters, including Raylan Givens, Karen Sisco, and her father, Marshall Sisco (retired, and yes, he was "Marshal Marshall Sisco.")
111* TheWestern: What he started writing before switching to modern urban crime thrillers halfway through his career.
112** Leonard's skill was taking the ethos of the Wild West and transplanting it to the modern day. Guys like Raylan Givens or Jack Foley wouldn't be out of place in 1880s Arizona. And Ben Wade would fit right in to modern-day Miami.

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