At the time I begin writing a novel, the last thing I want to do is follow a plot outline. To know too much at the start takes the pleasure out of discovering what the book is about.
Elmore LeonardRead
If you take a few days to write an outline, you're just making up scenes that you think will work, that you think will be interesting. But as you write it, other ideas occur - better ideas that have to do with what you're writing.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing an outline may help, but the best ideas often come during the writing process itself.
Elmore Leonard emphasizes the importance of spontaneity and creativity in writing. While outlining can provide structure, the act of writing can lead to unexpected and superior ideas that enhance the narrative, suggesting that writers should remain open to evolving their stories as they create.
Themes
WritingCreativityIdeasOutlineStorytelling
In practice
Example use cases
In a writer's workshop discussing the creative process.
More from Elmore Leonard
All quotes →A friend of mine who is in the publishing business knew I was writing a book, and he said, 'Have you said anything yet about the good guy? Because I know you spend so much time with the bad guys.' Because they're fun. So then you have to make the good guy fun, in order to compete. That's the challenge.
Elmore LeonardRead
Really, when I write a book I'm the only one I have to please. That's the beauty of writing a book instead of a screenplay.
Elmore LeonardRead
Sometimes female characters start out as the wife or girlfriend, but then I realize, 'No, she's the book,' and she becomes a main character. I surrender the book to her.
Elmore LeonardRead
I really - I don't take my work that seriously, and I think that's what keeps me loose. If I try to write, if I catch myself trying to write, I'll fall right on my face. I'll see it. If I see in the prose that I'm - 'Boy, look at me writing,' I rewrite it. I rewrite it because I don't, because I think it's distracting.
Elmore LeonardRead
There are some people who have been reading me for years, and they keep saying kind things about the writing. That's what you're writing for, to get people to respond to it.
Elmore LeonardRead
Similar quotes
The funniest thing is that all the things every director goes through, I thought I could shortcut, but there was no getting around those issues.
George ClooneyRead
I feel like a ghost wandering in a world grown alien. I cannot cast out the old way of writing and I cannot acquire the new. I have made an intense effort to feel the musical manner of today, but it will not come to me.
Sergei RachmaninoffRead
I've always known that I was born to sing, ever since I was a child.
Andrea BocelliRead
I can't say what people use the experience of listening to songs for, but I would never tell somebody what it is supposed to mean. That defeats the purpose of making it. Hopefully, whoever connects with it connects with it in their own way, and it can mean whatever it is supposed to mean to them.
Mark LaneganRead
The creative artist seems to be almost the only kind of man that you could never meet on neutral ground. You can only meet him as an artist. He sees nothing objectively because his own ego is always in the foreground of every picture
Raymond ChandlerRead
I didn’t know that painters and writers retired. They’re like soldiers – they just fade away.
Lawrence FerlinghettiRead