The Accidental Writer: Is the Path to Hell Paved with Adverbs?
There is a movement afoot to do away with adverbs. In fact, many “serious” writers scoff at those “ly” words, turning their noses up in the air, and pursing their lips.
Why so much venom? At first, the extreme reaction left me a little dumbfounded. They’ve always seemed useful to me, but as I gave it more thought I see where the problem lies. Adverbs are often used to tell readers information instead of showing them, and they usually can be replaced with stronger verbs. Verbs are the strongest words we can use, so using an adverb instead of the right verb is always a bad choice.
Here is an example of telling. “I hate you,” said Janice angrily. The narrator has told the reader Janice’s emotions. Compare that to – “I hate you,” said Janice, her face flushing with color, spit flying from her mouth. The second example shows the reader what Janice is feeling and paints a very unpleasant picture. We can see that she is not just angry but really pissed off.
Now, what about verbs? You could write, “John walked slowly along the beach.” Not terrible. It gives the reader some important info. However, you would be better off writing “John strolled along the beach.” We’ve used less words and “strolled” is stronger than “walked slowly.”
So, what should you do about adverbs? I hunt them down in my writing and try to rip them out whenever I can. Still, some slip through the cracks. Sometimes an adverb works best when we want a shortcut to deliver a little morsel of information. I guess I’ve become a partial snob without noticing!
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