Dinner With Leonard And Leonard
Crime novelist Elmore Leonard and his novelist son Peter talk to Ann O'Neill from CNN:

The Leonards say there's no big mystery to writing fiction. You simply have to want to do it more than anything else on earth. It has to be an undeniable part of you.

You have to crave it.

...Elmore never lets himself get in the way of a good story. The narrator is almost invisible as characters move from scene to scene, cracking wise while they do stupid, violent things.

He is the master of quirky, well-drawn characters, snappy dialogue, clever plot twists and a narrative style so spare it reads like haiku. Its simple beauty can put a bullet through your heart.

He thinks most crooks are dumb, and that dumb is funny. He likes a good caper and the violence seems to be almost incidental, more like an occupational hazard.

And, he thinks most books have "too many words in them." It's a point he made in his famous essay "Ten Rules of Writing," which was turned into a very short book. It includes tips such as: Don't open with the weather; avoid adverbs; leave out the parts readers skip over. A bonus 11th rule: If it sounds like writing, rewrite it.