#adverbs

Part 5

Part 1

Adverbs

Gasp! Oh no. Dare come yet more writing advice burning adverbs at the stake? Vindictively, gleefully, manically dancing in the ashes?

No.

This is not about whether or not you should use them, but their frequency and obvious places to replace them. Most bad adverbs are the common ones that could be replaced by verbs we all know.

“She ran quickly” // “She sprinted”

“He said angrily” // “He snapped” “He chided” “He chastised”

vs.

“He ate voraciously”

“She swayed solemnly”

“She laughed sadly”

Bonus if you can add in some alliteration like ‘swayed solemnly’

If you can come up with an obvious verb to replace your verb + adverb combo, do so. If it would take more words or the closest applicable verb doesn’t hit the same vibe, then leave it. Adverbs should enhance the verb, not be redundant. Verbs shouldn’t be pretentious just to avoid them.

“She smiled happily” — most smiles are happy. Happily is redundant.

“He ran quickly” —a run is, by nature, quick

vs.

“She smiled sourly”

“He ran erratically”

Also!

The adverb need not always be after the verb.

“C accepted gladly” // “C gladly accepted”

But also

“Glad, C accepted”

“A shook their head resolutely” // “Resolute, A shook their head”

“The child skipped excitedly away.” // “Excited, the child skipped away.” // “The child skipped away, excited.”

English is flexible like that.

Which is what I mean with managing your adverb frequency. As most end in the -ly, too many in succession, on top of the repeat syntax of Subject - Verb - Adverb looks boring and dull (and so does beginning every sentence with the subject). It helps with your cadence and flow if you don’t have entire paragraphs at a time all starting with “He [verb]” or “She [verb]” or “They [verb].” We don't speak like this in natural conversation.

せいさん

production; manufacture

昨年は有り余るほどの米が生産された。 さくねん は ありあまる ほど の こめ が せいさん された。 An abundance of rice was produced last year.

Obligatory disclaimer: You do not have to delete all your adverbs in writing. There is always going to be a case when throwing in "quickly," "angrily," "sharply," etc will be fine. It's entirely up to you to decide what works when.

However, you will often see the advice to get rid of them, because they can be used as crutch words - they weaken your chance to use more descriptive writing, and that's always worth thinking about. Some places to pay particular attention to adverbs:

In Dialogue Tags

The biggest overuse of adverbs are in dialogue tags, but often you can more strongly convey emotion in both the dialogue and the description attached to it. Consider:

"What are you doing?" Jane asked angrily.

Versus:

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Jane asked, her expression twisted into a scowl.

Simple stuff, but I've conveyed that Jane is angry by adjusting her words and describing her body language. This gives me the chance to reveal more about Jane in the vocabulary she uses when angry, and also in her body language. You can also swap some "said _ly" tags with clearly words like "snapped, yelled, whispered, hissed, etc" (but don't overdo that either.)

Weak Description Words

Really, very, barely, almost, kind of, etc - there's a lot of adverbs that get in the way of being more clear about the action and weakening the intent of the sentence. They're filler words that don't give you range to convey what you really want to convey. Consider the following:

Max almost reached out to comfort her.

Versus

Max could've wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer as she cried, but he couldn't work up the courage, his arms hanging limply at his sides.

Again, not the best example, but the second shows us more emotion from Max, and that's going to help your reader connect more to the character.

Should you always avoid adverbs? No, sometimes they're fine. But there's often a better word out there that makes your sentence stronger. "Sarah ran quickly" could become "Sarah sprinted". More specific words can paint a clearly picture. Galloped, crawled, dragged, and skipped are better than a -ly adverb.

So, for those who have seen my adverbs post, it is not "never use these" it's a "these might not have quite the effect you want" and a "these are easy to overuse".

Icky adverbs to me are:

1. Adverbs that fall short of the desired effect

Example: "She slowly clasps her father's hand."

The 'slowly' doesn't quite capture the emotion I want, it just tells me how fast it happens. Nothing else.

So I would replace it with:

"She tentatively clasps her father's hand."

2. Adverbs that are everywhere.

The 'ly' is great sparingly (This is my opinion! Not rules!) but can be easily relied on or overused, so it's good to use different words and then go back and edit in 'ly' if you think it works. Though there is often a word that will have a sharper or stronger effect than an adverb.