I’ve been reading some of the Florida titles lately, in preparation for ROAD DOGS. I just finished RIDING THE RAP and I opened up GET SHORTY last night for the first time in at least five years. I knew there was something that would jump out at me on the first page that I wasn’t able to put my finger on. In Mr. L’s TEN RULES OF WRITING, Rule Number One is: Never open a book with weather. Well, he opened GET SHORTY——one of his greatest novels—-with just that: Tommy and Chili complaining about the weather; being too cold for Miami Beach!  I realize that every rule has an exception, but found it funny that even Mr. L breaks his own rules every so often.

Thoughts?

look at the first page of
be cool
same deal
except it’s never cold in LA

Here’s the Rule and the part of the explanation that’s relevant.

1. Never open a book with weather.
If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people.

What the rule proscribes, then, is making the weather the first subject the reader encounters. If you’re doing what Elmore did in Get Shorty, explaining why Chili was especially pissed his leather jacket got ripped off—which sets up punching Ray Bones, thereby laying the foundation for the whole book—it’s OK, because the subject isn’t the weather, it’s Chili Palmer and his attitude, how he takes no shit from anyone.

Elmore didn’t violate this Rule.