Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules for Writing A Good Yelp Review

1. Never open a review with weather. Or the occasion of your dinner. Or anything about your date. We don’t care.

2. Avoid prologues. Don’t explain why you’ve decided to write a review, or what kind of day you were having, or whether you normally like kimchi or not.

3. Never use a verb other than “ate” to describe food entering your mouth and being predigested in it.

4. Never use an adverb to modify how the server took your order or how she put the water on the table or how she reacted when you asked for Splenda. We don’t believe you.

5. Keep your “yum” points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three “yums” per 100,000 words of Yelp review.

6. Never use the words “parking” or “food poisoning.”

7. Use references to the two weeks you vacationed in Thailand and to your Mexican abuelita sparingly.

8. Avoid detailed photos of characters. It will not help us decide whether to dine at this establishment if we see a “goofy” photo of your bestie Jason holding up a beer stein.

9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things that are not the food that you ate or the restaurant at which you ate it. Really, just don’t, why would you.

10. Try to leave out the part that users tend to want to flag as stupid and useless.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If you sound like a dipshit, rewrite it.

(See Elmore’s original Rules.)