Tuesday brings Elmore Leonard's 41st novel,
Up in Honey's Room, which is final installment of a loose trilogy that began with
The Hot Kid. (The middle part was Leonard's
New York Times serial,
Comfort to the Enemy.) Leonard's hitting the Free Library Philly this Thursday, and I was lucky enough to score a 30-minute phone interview with him this past Friday. The complete Q&A will appear at
www.citypaper.net this Wednesday evening (or whenever the new issue is uploaded), but here's a little sneak preview for you. Leonard told me that his plots always come out of his characters, and I asked if he ever had an end point in mind. His response:
No, I’m always making it up as I go along. The first 100 pages seem to work, because I’m introducing characters, and we find out what their angle is. But then from 100—and I always think of it that way, in three parts—but from 100 to 200 is when I have to do a little plotting. And I don’t want the plot to be obvious. I want the reader to wonder what’s going to happen and be surprised at what develops. Because now in that second act some of the secondary characters will get into action. And then, of course, there's the third act. In the past my manuscripts all run around 350-360 pages. So once I approach page 300, I have to start thinking of the ending. And there are always several different ways you can end it. I choose one that I like and just go for it.
Tuesday brings Elmore Leonard's 41st novel, Up in Honey's Room, which is final installment of a loose trilogy that began with The Hot Kid. (The middle part was Leonard's New York Times serial, Comfort to the Enemy.) Leonard's hitting the Free Library Philly this Thursday, and I was lucky enough to score a 30-minute phone interview with him this past Friday. The complete Q&A will appear at www.citypaper.net this Wednesday evening (or whenever the new issue is uploaded), but here's a little sneak preview for you. Leonard told me that his plots always come out of his characters, and I asked if he ever had an end point in mind. His response:
I've been looking forward to this book. I'll have to check out the interview when it goes up.
ReplyDeleteUh... awesome!
ReplyDeleteHow'd you manage to score an interview with him? That's just awesome! I'll definitely read this book as well as the next (which he says stars Jack Foley from Out of Sight and Dawn Navarro from Riding the Rap).
ReplyDeleteWellesFan: It's thanks to my day job at the Philadelphia City Paper.
ReplyDeleteElmore Leonard is the definition of pro. The other day the original 3:10 to Yuma was on TV from, like, 1955, and I was staggered to think how long he's been in the business, that quiet and consistent excellence for decade after decade. Can't wait for the full interview.
ReplyDeleteHe makes it sound so easy, doesn't he?
ReplyDeleteI have stood in line to meet just one author, and that was Elmore Leonard. I think the thing I learned from him that knocked my hat off was the simple understanding that when you have a dialogue between two people, you have two ver different agendas, and you should be true to them both.
That's just great. I'm really looking forward to the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteI was lucky enough to get an advance copy of this book and it's terrific. Honey is one of Elmore Leonard's best characters.
ReplyDeleteI also really like the ways he's playing with fact and fiction in this book, really giving the "lit eggheads" something to write about. Plus, it's a huge amount of fun.