A New Year's Letter to Elmore Leonard

So, this is the New Year, and its starting off cold as hell.  The sun is out, shining over the bare gray trees, and the sky is a warm clear blue.  But the air is as frigid as the cold hand of death.

                I broke one of Elmore Leonard’s ten rules of writing with that one.  Never talk about the weather, he says.  Now, Leonard is a highly regarded writer with more than thirty books and hundreds of short stories under his belt, so he knows what he’s talking about.  It goes well with his other rule of leaving out the parts the reader is going to skip.

                Well, Mr. Leonard, I just broke your rule.  I started off with the weather, in the very first sentence, mind you, and carried it on through the first paragraph.  What do you have to say about that?  What’s that?  Nothing? 

                Well, that might be because you’re dead. 

                It’s too bad, really, because I really want to know why reading about the weather is such a bad thing.  After all, isn’t “It was a dark and stormy night” a literary trope for a reason?  Weather can set the mood.  Creates a setting.  Gives our characters something to struggle with right out of the gate.  There’s plenty of stories where the weather stands as an obstacle for the characters.  Remember the little matchstick girl, Mr. Leonard?  What about her?  The weather was a big part of that story, wasn’t it?  Or was that the part you skipped over?

                Listen, I’m sorry for giving you a hard time, Mr. Leonard, and your list of writing does and don’ts  has become an essential part of my creative writing process, but this one I don’t understand.  I mean, its not like I went on and on about how cold it is outside, even though it is freezing, and it has forced me indoors to contemplate what you have against the weather.  I don’t like it anymore than you do, but there it is.  And I use it a lot.  It sets up some of my stories.  The weather is always there in the background.  The characters have to bundle up or strip down, depending on the circumstances. 

                So, Mr. Leonard, I’m going to have to go against you on this one.  Just this one, so far.  But maybe I’ll come up with a few more to disagree with.  This is a New Year after all, and its time to change some things.  To raise some questions.  I know I’m giving you a hard time, and I don’t mean to, but just because you wrote so many great books, that doesn’t make you an expert on what works in fiction, does it?

                Does it?

                Well, maybe it does.  But it’s cold in here, so I’m going with it.