Friday, January 23, 2009

Take that, Elmore Leonard.

In his "book" (if can call a hardback with one sentence per page a book) "10 Rules of Writing," Elmore Leonard states emphatically:

Never use any word other than "said" to attribute dialogue.

Although I'm sure he would quibble with my use of the word "emphatically." Because it's an adverb.

Anyway, my son brings home this flyer from school recently that flies in the face of the great Mr. Leonard's advice. So who's right? The multi-million selling book author with 50 years of writing under his belt, or my son's fourth grade teacher?

Personally, I like a good dialogue attributer now and then. But then, maybe that's why I'm not published.

Round one to you, Mr. Leonard.