10 Copywriting Secrets From a Legendary Author

I recently came across the late Elmore Leonard's "10 Rules of Writing." Leonard was a novelist, most famously of crime fiction. But his rules apply surprisingly well to fundraising writing.

Here are the first five, along with my annotations for fundraisers:

1. Never open a book with weather. (Probably not a good idea for a fundraising appeal either. Unless it's about a hurricane.)
2. Avoid prologues. (Yes!)
3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. (Yes!)
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said." (Yes!)
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.