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ELMORE LEONARD IS THE MANA Nice Long Talk with the Best Crime Novelist Ever(Page 2 of 3)
In the meetings that I’ve gone to, I’ve never met another writer. But that doesn’t mean anything because in my area there are only one or two others that you’ve ever heard of. Maybe it’s because you’re alone, because you’re by yourself writing and you need… I don’t know what you need. The solitude seems to get to some people. It’s like, I gave up smoking once for 30 days and I wrote 30 pages. And then I started smoking again, and in the next 30 days I wrote 100. I don’t meet many people your age who still smoke. What have I got to lose? [laughs] And I know people who quit smoking and then their lives went to hell. They got sick and, you know… Everybody has to have something. If it’s going to be cigarettes, so be it. Are there any of your characters who you personally identify with more than others? I usually identify with the main character. The way his mind works is the way mine does, and what’s important and what isn’t important to him is the same for me. But I like all my characters. I spend time with them and I get to know enough about them so that I don’t have to describe them psychically in any detail unless there’s something, a little something, that catches your eye. That’s one of your 10 Rules of Writing, correct? Don’t overdescribe characters. Yeah, right. Which I got from Steinbeck. Right. I like your first rule: Never open with a description of the weather. And leave out the parts that people tend to skip. And if it sounds like writing— Rewrite it. You know them. I do. Can you tell me what’s so interesting to you about criminals? There are all kinds of stories I can tell about a criminal. Has he done time and now he’s out and he seems like a good guy? And there’s that opportunity for him to go back into crime at any time. That’s always up in the air. I like that. But really, I write crime because it’s popular. And you wrote Westerns when they were popular. Very popular. There were probably 15 magazines you could sell to anytime you wanted. Pulp magazines paying two cents a word. Like 3:10 to Yuma. Twice it’s been a movie and I got $90 for the story—4,500 words. Do you get anything from the movies? First time I got $4,000. Second time I didn’t get anything. The ending of the remake was pretty different from your story. Does that make you unhappy? Well, it’s just dumb. In the new one, he shoots his own guys— That was insane. And then he gets on the train and whistles for his horse! I don’t know what that means. I have no idea. Is the horse going to follow him all the way across Arizona? Running alongside the train. Are there any new upcoming adaptations of your work? My character Rayland Givens and his stories are being made into a pilot by Sony for the FX network. Interesting. That character wears a very particular kind of gentleman’s Stetson hat. It’s very small, and it’s well worn. Now, he has been done once before. It was a movie for TV. And they got the wrong hat. I don’t know why they got the wrong hat. How hard can it be? Who is playing Givens this time around? A guy named Olyphant. You know him? Timothy Olyphant. He was on the HBO series Deadwood. He’s really good. I hope they get the hat right this time. I don’t know why they can’t just find an old hat. You’re probably tired of hearing about how great your dialogue is, but I’m just going to say it here once more because it really is the best. I write dialogue because I don’t want to have to describe things myself. I like point of view, and the points of view change. It’s always how a character sees whatever is going on. The weather, even. In one of my books, a guy is having trouble and he walks out on the beach and he looks up at the sky and it’s raining and he just yells out, “Fuck!” And that’s my weather description, see? It’s perfect. “Fuck.” Do you speak your dialogue out loud while you’re writing it? No. Nor do I laugh until years later, when I’m warming up by reading my old books. Before I start to write I’ll open one of the books and just start reading so that I get into the rhythm of it again. I’m sitting there cold in front of my desk, and I’ll read something and I’ll laugh because I’m surprised by it. When I was working on a line, it was just a process of work. It wasn’t something that just came out. Do you have a particular place where you like to write? I write in the living room. Longhand? Longhand at first. All the creating is longhand and then I type during the day as I go along. But I get to my desk later now than I used to. I get there at 10:30 or 11 o’clock and I used to always be there by 9. And before, when I was still working at an ad agency, I’d get up at 5. That takes some serious dedication. I had to start writing before I could put the water on for coffee. Oh my God. It took about three months to start getting up at 5 when the alarm went off. For the first three months you’d just smack the snooze button. Yeah, and roll over. But finally I started to get up. During the 50s, I wrote five books and 30 short stories in the dawn. You’ve employed a researcher for a while now. Greg Sutter. He’s been working for me since at least ’83. Is Greg working on the Somalian-pirate book now? Yes. We’ve got so much stuff. I’ve got stacks and stacks on my desk and on the floor. When we started in November there wasn’t that much to really look for. And it’s become a huge story since then. Huge! Now everybody wants to make a movie about it and there are a bunch of TV movies—my agent in Hollywood says—that they want to get into. Is Greg also the person who’s responsible for helping you to keep up with gang and criminal lingo? That’s him. Do you stay in contact with any of the criminals who figure into your research? I hear from them. They write to me and want to know if I’ve done time. I met a guy at Telluride who had done a few years in Colorado for selling marijuana. He said, “God, you’ve got it right down, the way these inmates talk.” But where I usually get it from is an article where somebody will say a specific line. And that line leads to something. Right. But yeah, this guy in Colorado, he said, “In my trial, I maintained that the marijuana was for my own use.” And I said, “Well, how much did you have?” and he said, “400 pounds.” Sure, personal use. Are you friends with any ex-cons? No. Well, there is one guy. I’m not sure what he’s in for, but he’s done over 20 years and he’s getting out soon. It was a federal offense. He’s from Detroit. He had a plan once. Down by the naval armory on the Detroit River there was a submarine anchored forever. His idea was to steal it. But where are you going to go with a submarine, you know? [laughs] That’s a lot of scrap metal. And then they moved the submarine. He thinks they found out about his plot. You guys are pen pals? He writes to me and sometimes I’ll answer his letters. He’s just kind of subversive. Sub-versive. Ha. Yeah. He’s a socialist. So stealing the submarine would have been a statement of some sort. Yeah, right. See all articles by this contributor
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