Editor's Desk #3: Blithely Digging Your Grave With Adverbs
For those of you that are having trouble remembering what grade school was like, or who never really enjoyed "Mad Libs," adverbs are those words that end in -ly. You know, words like cutely, quickly, sexily, or any other inbred member of the -ly clan. Seriously, adverbs are like zombies, they get a single taste of a verb and pretty soon it's stumbling around with unnecessary letters at the end of it.
For those who didn't catch the subtle lead up, today's hint for the aspiring author is to avoid using adverbs at all costs. An adverb is kind of like a stimulant. When used sparingly, it can inject a quick punch into a sentence or a scene. However, if you use adverbs all the time, then it's kind of like drinking coffee laced with cocaine, Pretty soon you won't be able to go on without doing that regularly, because it's habit forming.
Adverbs are, by and large, spice for your literary stew. Not every sentence needs an adverb, and not every character needs to have them. And, as the great sage and eminent junkie Stephen King said repeatedly in his book On Writing, adverbs are little darlings that you, as the writer, may need to drown in editorial creek.
Pick up any book, no matter how popular it is or how much money it's made, and compare how many unnecessary adverbs it uses to how well regarded it is by critics. And indeed, by the writing community overall. Books like the infamous "Twilight" series and its spawn "50 Shades of Gray" are big offenders in adding unnecessary adverbs. And while writers the world over would love that kind of success, this is not one area to compromise your skillset with.
Now, all of that said, not all adverbs are bad. In fact, when used properly, adverbs are like salt; they make a decent egg into a great breakfast. But look at the adverbs you're thinking about using before you add them into the pot. Is that character really moving fast enough for you to say quickly? If you've already given us a description of the freckle faced darling with the big sucker, do we need to say that she smiled cutely? Your story is like a cow, and if you don't cut the fat during the butchering that is the editorial process, rest assured that someone on down the line will take a knife to all those adverbs your story can do without.
For those who didn't catch the subtle lead up, today's hint for the aspiring author is to avoid using adverbs at all costs. An adverb is kind of like a stimulant. When used sparingly, it can inject a quick punch into a sentence or a scene. However, if you use adverbs all the time, then it's kind of like drinking coffee laced with cocaine, Pretty soon you won't be able to go on without doing that regularly, because it's habit forming.
Adverbs are, by and large, spice for your literary stew. Not every sentence needs an adverb, and not every character needs to have them. And, as the great sage and eminent junkie Stephen King said repeatedly in his book On Writing, adverbs are little darlings that you, as the writer, may need to drown in editorial creek.
Pick up any book, no matter how popular it is or how much money it's made, and compare how many unnecessary adverbs it uses to how well regarded it is by critics. And indeed, by the writing community overall. Books like the infamous "Twilight" series and its spawn "50 Shades of Gray" are big offenders in adding unnecessary adverbs. And while writers the world over would love that kind of success, this is not one area to compromise your skillset with.
Now, all of that said, not all adverbs are bad. In fact, when used properly, adverbs are like salt; they make a decent egg into a great breakfast. But look at the adverbs you're thinking about using before you add them into the pot. Is that character really moving fast enough for you to say quickly? If you've already given us a description of the freckle faced darling with the big sucker, do we need to say that she smiled cutely? Your story is like a cow, and if you don't cut the fat during the butchering that is the editorial process, rest assured that someone on down the line will take a knife to all those adverbs your story can do without.
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Notes From the Editor's Desk
This is a place to get a humorous take on the many, many sins that writers commit to try and tell a story. Editors are bitter, angry, hateful people... but it's these things that make them that way!
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