11. Ignore Elmore Leonard, by Catriona

 What “great literary influence” do you secretly think is overrated—but are afraid to say publicly?

completely gratuitous pic of boxset
because I love it.

Right then.

I've got a problem with "overrated". It either means "too many people like this thing I don't like" or it means "the people who like this thing I kinda like like it more than me, which is too much". 

The second one is bonkers. The first is worse. If someone's going to mount a serious argument that fewer people should like something, I want a list of names. I want an alphabetical list of the people who should disdain the thing instead of holding it in esteem. And then I want an orderly explanation of how come the list maker is in charge of these strangers' preferences.

There's an exception, mind you. I don't think people should be rated at any level at all as Great Literary Influences, if they fall into this category. I'll explain. One - maybe the only - drawback to hanging out at lovely gossipy Harrogate last week was finding out which celebrities have put their names on crime novels despite not writing them. So annoying. I'm not listing them here but I will say that Richard Coles, Graham Norton and Sir Richard of Osman himself DO write their books.

There's one other Great Literary Influence I think is overrated, in that it does actual harm to people's creative life. I hinted at it in the title. If I can use "hinted" to mean, shone a klieglight on it and drew arrows. It's Elmore Leonard's 10 rules of writing. You know what I mean. "Don't start with the weather". "No adverbs". "No prologues". Pfft. Do what you want, I say. Learn to do it well. 

And I'm not alone. Nick Hornby has views on rules about writing. He speaks kindly but firmly about the fetishisation of cutting, to end up with lean prose, in particular. "That clinking noise you hear" he says, "is a class full of creative-writing students hitting bone". Then he slyly points out how improbable it would be if every story really was perfectly itself, peak and pinnacle wise, at 80K. He suggests that 80K being the sweet spot for a literary novel might - just might - be a factor. He doesn't say everyone should wind their necks in and/or get over themselves. That's me.

The truth, I reckon, is that brilliant books start with weather, adverbs have their place, prologues are absolutely fine (although I personally like short ones). And when it comes to "omitting needless words" as Strunk and White command . . . pfft again. For every Claire Keegan, there's a Donna Tartt.  

Cx