Adverbs and Cliches Are Not Evil
I like cliches and adverbs. There, I said it. Whew. Feels good getting that off my chest*.
Like anything else, they should be used with a light hand*. Like salt on your food. Sprinkle a little here and there to add flavor, but don't overdo it. Cutting them out entirely? To me, it makes things bland.
Now, if you're a writer, I'm sure you've heard you should never ever use adverbs. Personally, I think eschewing an entire part of speech is silly. I mean, they - whoever 'they' are - also tell you to be concise, right? So, if the most concise way to get your thought across involves using an adverb, why would you use a more words? Sometimes using a non-adverb phrase to mean the same thing as an adverb is being unnecessarily wordy. Or to take the adverb out of that sentence... Being wordy when you don't have to be wordy. Seven words to take the place of one. See what I mean?
Yes, yes, AWE catches some of my more five-dollar* adverbs. Lest we forget the 'peremptorily' debacle. It's a word. It fit there. But it was too precious for what I was writing. Unfortunately, I have this thing where, of all the words in my head, the precious ones pop out through my fingers when I can't think of the more normal one. (Take 'eschewing' up there as an example.)
As for cliches, well, they're a known quantity. If I say 'beggars can't be choosers', the reader knows exactly what I mean. Sometimes I switch that one up a little - 'beggars can't afford to be picky'. The reader still gets it, but it's not as cliche. Taking a known cliche and switching it too much, though, can be kind of jarring to the reader. I wish I could remember the example I ran across the other day where someone used a reworded cliche. All I could think of was the cliche in its original form and how the rewording was just wrong.
For the most part, my writing style is conversational. (Which is why peremptorily was so not right.) Normal people, in conversation, use a lot of cliches. They use cliches like they're going out of style*. :smirk: Changing that up too much would ruin the conversational aspect. Everyday people aren't running around trying to think of ways to reword cliches.
Jus' sayin'.
And, of course, this is just my opinion. As always, use whatever bits of the language that get your point across. As long as the story doesn't suffer. And your editor doesn't want to come after you with a butcher knife. ;o)
* all cliches and all but the last inserted unintentionally - because that's how I write.
Like anything else, they should be used with a light hand*. Like salt on your food. Sprinkle a little here and there to add flavor, but don't overdo it. Cutting them out entirely? To me, it makes things bland.
Now, if you're a writer, I'm sure you've heard you should never ever use adverbs. Personally, I think eschewing an entire part of speech is silly. I mean, they - whoever 'they' are - also tell you to be concise, right? So, if the most concise way to get your thought across involves using an adverb, why would you use a more words? Sometimes using a non-adverb phrase to mean the same thing as an adverb is being unnecessarily wordy. Or to take the adverb out of that sentence... Being wordy when you don't have to be wordy. Seven words to take the place of one. See what I mean?
Yes, yes, AWE catches some of my more five-dollar* adverbs. Lest we forget the 'peremptorily' debacle. It's a word. It fit there. But it was too precious for what I was writing. Unfortunately, I have this thing where, of all the words in my head, the precious ones pop out through my fingers when I can't think of the more normal one. (Take 'eschewing' up there as an example.)
As for cliches, well, they're a known quantity. If I say 'beggars can't be choosers', the reader knows exactly what I mean. Sometimes I switch that one up a little - 'beggars can't afford to be picky'. The reader still gets it, but it's not as cliche. Taking a known cliche and switching it too much, though, can be kind of jarring to the reader. I wish I could remember the example I ran across the other day where someone used a reworded cliche. All I could think of was the cliche in its original form and how the rewording was just wrong.
For the most part, my writing style is conversational. (Which is why peremptorily was so not right.) Normal people, in conversation, use a lot of cliches. They use cliches like they're going out of style*. :smirk: Changing that up too much would ruin the conversational aspect. Everyday people aren't running around trying to think of ways to reword cliches.
Jus' sayin'.
And, of course, this is just my opinion. As always, use whatever bits of the language that get your point across. As long as the story doesn't suffer. And your editor doesn't want to come after you with a butcher knife. ;o)
* all cliches and all but the last inserted unintentionally - because that's how I write.
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