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Hi guys! It’s been a while since I’ve made an original post, but tonight I had some extra time on my hands and this popped into my head. Tonight we’re going to talk about adverbs and why exactly it is they’re frowned upon.

We’ve all heard it at least five hundred times, right? Adverbs are not your friends. It’s one of those writing mantras that just gets drilled into your head time after time until you accept it. After a while, some of us may ask ourselves, Why? Why can’t I fraternize with adverbs?

Because they’re lazy writing. You’ve probably heard that umpteen times, too. But why exactly are they lazy writing? What makes them so unbearable? I’ll tell you.

Another writing mantra that’s often shared is Show, don’t tell. In case some of you haven’t heard it, or have heard it so many times it’s lost its meaning, let me explain: basically, show, don’t tell means that it’s more effective to show reactions rather than flat-out say them. For example, instead of He was angry, you could say His jaw was clenched and his shoulders were bunched up like a prizefighter’s; instead of saying I was brimming with anxiety, you could say I felt almost seasick, my stomach broiling like a pot of noodles, and my palms were slick with sweat. That would be showing instead of telling.

One of the main problems with adverbs is that they limit a writer’s ability to show. For example, take this:

Arthur closed the door furiously and walked across the room with a snarl.

You’ll notice two adverbs: furiously and with a snarl (with a snarl is an adverbial phrase – adverbial phrases serve the same function as single-word adverbs, they just come after a comma and are prepositional phrases (things like with a grimace, after a pause, and from a distance)). Now take this:

Arthur slammed the door shut behind himself and walked across the room. His cheeks flamed, and his hands were fisted so tightly his fingernails cut into his palms.

I got rid of the adverbs, and it sounds much better than the first example: the first paints an image that’s kind of fuzzy, but the second is shown in hi-def (at least in comparison to the first). Your word count will increase a little bit if the first example is your first draft and the second example is your second, but in this case I’d say it’s worth it – the quality of your story always comes first.

Another reason adverbs are poor writing tools is that they can be redundant. Using the examples above, let’s paint a little more of the scene, to give the original lines some context:

“Arthur? Arthur, come back! You owe it to me!”

“I don’t owe you shit!”

Arthur tried to start up the staircase, but Vickie pulled him backwards – yanked him, actually. He stumbled, almost fell backwards onto the concrete, then caught his balance. He stood there, looking at her under the piss-yellow lights. Her grip on his wrist was iron.

“You owe everything to me,” she said through gritted teeth. Arthur tried to turn, but her grip only tightened. “You might have forgotten where you come from, but I haven’t, and I plan to collect on my debt.”

There was a lump in his throat that wanted to form tears, but every time he’d cried in front of her she’d turned it against him, and he wouldn’t take it anymore. “You’re asking too much, Vickie.” His voice broke, and that stung like a whip. He sounded like a kid going through puberty. “I can’t give you everything!”

“Fine.” She let go of his wrist and turned away. “Then I guess I won’t give you anything.”

He stood torn, searching for something to say, but he was pulling a blank, so he spun and ran upstairs to the relative safety of his apartment. God, who did she think she was? He was always running, but this was the last time. He’d make sure of it.

He got to his apartment and fumbled with his keys for a solid minute before he got the right one into the lock. Once he was inside, he closed the door furiously and walked across the room with a snarl.

There’s the context. Compared to all the material prior to it, the bolded sentence – the one from our first example – looks almost garish, right? Too contrived? That’s because it’s overkill. Based on the content of the previous scene, we know he’s angry; things like furiously and with a snarl are too much. They convey only one emotion: rage. From what just happened to Arthur, we know he’s feeling a lot more than pure fury.

Now reread the excerpt, but replace the bolded sentence with this: he slammed the door shut behind himself and walked across the room. His cheeks flamed, and his fists were clenched so tightly that his fingernails cut into his palms. Better, right? Yes, because it’s not redundant. The first sentence didn’t fit because it was too bold: it shoved Arthur’s anger in the audience’s face, even though that’s not the only emotion he’s feeling (or even necessarily the primary one). The second option fit better because, by showing instead of telling, it allowed room for the variety of emotions swimming in Arthur’s head (regret, anxiety, anger at both Vickie and himself, embarrassment, and probably more I’m forgetting), and didn’t keep yelling about something we’d already established.

So, to recap: we don’t use adverbs because

1. They tell instead of showing, and

2. They’re redundant. Those two reasons alone are enough to toss them out the window.