Killing (And Sparing) The Adverb

Killing (And Sparing) The Adverb

knifeAny tool can be used goodly or badly!

Why are adverbs “bad?”

Well, to be fair, they’re not. They’re quite simple and clear in their meaning, and are very common in ordinary speech.

However, some are severely overused in prose, making it plodding and tiresome to read. Some are extremely extraneous. And some tell what you can easily be showing instead.

One good way to step up your writing is to strike and swap out adverbs- when it makes sense to do so. Here are some thoughts toward addressing adverbs in your prose:

1) Don’t worry about dialogue. People talk how people talk. You needn’t take an axe to the words that come out of a character’s mouth, unless their dialogue must conform to a specific pattern (for instance, Commander Data in Star Trek never used contractions, lending a stilted tone to his speech).

2) Consider the person/voice of your narration. A first-person narration, wherein a character is telling you his story, should read more like the character is speaking. In that case, narration can follow the same rules as spoken dialogue, and can be whatever it needs to be- so long as it’s in-character. Your raging illiterate barbarian probably won’t ever be pondering the verisimilitude of his targets, for instance.

However, a narrative voice that’s not attached to any particular character will have no particular personality associated with it, and can benefit from some adverb-trimming.

3) Some adverbs can almost always be removed without a problem. Very, mostly, quite, really, fairly, somewhat, basically, fundamentally– these don’t add much. Removing them often makes the sentence stronger.

4) Consider revising or removing “cliche” adverbs. Strikingly beautiful, frequently used… some adverb/adjective or adverb/verb pairs are glued at the hip, they’re so frequently used together. Using them is a bit of inadvertent laziness on our part. It’s what our brains fall back on. And that’s fine for a first draft… but couldn’t you later come up with some original, more revealing way of saying the same thing?

Example 1: “I don’t come here often,” he said nervously.

Alternative 1: “I don’t come here often.” The hand holding his shot glass quivered.

Alternative 2: He stuttered something out, too quiet for me to hear. “What’s that?” I prompted.

He gave a start. “I- I just don’t come here often is all.”

Again, this falls into “show don’t tell” territory. Use these opportunities to reveal how characters behave or interpret the world around them.

Suddenly is also a good cliche to hunt down and destroy where possible. It does nothing to add to the prose, and is just a lazy way of signaling, “Hey, something’s about to happen.” You can do better!

5) Consider reserving adverbs for “unexpected” uses. An original adverb pairing can be attention-grabbing, but it should still be used sparingly. Too many of these can be distracting.

 

Have any other ideas about adverbs? Share your thoughts in the comments!


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