They will tell you not to write with adverbs. In fervent whispers, they will warn of adjectives, too.
Bullshit and bollocks.
Write however the hell you want to. If it entertains, people will like it.
I spent many years trying to write the way they told me to. You know how they do, those English professors, critics, and copy-editors. If only I’d just written what was inside me instead of editing so much, I’d have written a lot more.
All the adverb chopping they recommend won’t make a dull work entertaining, and it damn sure won’t make you any happier.
My recommendations: Read a lot of good writing. Read a little bad writing. Learn from both. And try to find your style, your voice, the way the words flow out from you. Molest that style as little as possible.
Adverbs and adjectives are good writing. Nothing wrong with them at all. Why would they exist otherwise? If adverbs are weak it is only due to a preponderance of weak verbs, right? Adjectives are good, too. They can rescue many a noun that otherwise would need a Thesauran rescue.
You could use too many of either one. Sure. But you can use too many nouns and verbs as well: She stepped into the forest and admired the oaks, pines, sweet gums, birches, willows, dogwoods… You get the idea. When the writing is a snooze, you lose.
If you’re writing from the voice in your head, the voice you inherited, the voice you picked up from reading good authors silently and aloud–please read aloud–then you’ll use the correct number of adjectives and adverbs. And if it’s your voice well executed, then it’s your voice. Maybe your voice needs more adjectives or adverbs.
Of course, you need to use strong descriptive nouns and verbs. The strongest and most specific you can summon without the thesaurus, without deviating from our modern vocabulary. If you do this, surely you can’t overuse adjectives and adverbs.
So, use as many as you want. Use them for color, for pacing, for rhythm, for reason. (When did we forget that words carry a rhythm?) Use them whenever you need them. But what you must not do is use weak words. I think this is the true but poorly stated intention of those who warn against these fine parts of speech.
All words should be as strong as possible. And yet, don’t wreck your mind and style over it. Don’t do as I did for years and ruin all the flow of your writing, slavishly chopping the sentences until they follow the rules of someone who didn’t base their rules on Dickens or Tolkien, Faulkner or Twain, Leiber or Moorcock, or any other superb writers.
Some Examples:
He painted the wall.
He splashed paint on the wall.
He splashed red and gold paint onto the wall.
Methodically, he splashed red and gold paint onto the stucco wall.
Cursing in violent spasms, he slung red and gold paint onto the weeping stucco wall.
Nothing wrong with any of these sentences, though the first two without adjectives or adverbs are a bit boring. And yet, maybe the first isn’t so dull. Maybe it’s leading somewhere:
He painted the wall. Red and gold. Methodically. Violently. The stucco had wept for ages, yet it wept for good reason now.
So, when they tell you how to write without adjectives and adverbs, conjure many grains of salt and remember: Since they are not you, you must do the writing. It is your writing, not theirs.
I’m not sure what’s screwing up the Share boxes on this post. They’re working fine on all the others.
Got it. The Share plug-in did NOT like the ampersand in the post title. Removed ampersand and everything’s peachy.
Shame really. Like William Blake, I adore the ampersand.
I have a theory about where this “rule” originated. It was an editor who spent every day slogging through hundreds of crap manuscripts in a vain effort to find that one publishable nugget. In exasperation, he wrote an essay on adjectives and adverbs. He explained how these words could be just fine and dandy, but some novice writers use them too much or just not properly. He mailed this essay out to anyone he thought would ever try to write anything. A few months later, he returned to the slush pile assuming he would find the problem solved. Instead, he discovered that 99.44% of these people he had advised assumed it must be other people who used adjectives too much.
He tried to clarify with another essay. It also failed. No matter how many times he tried to explain it, they just didn’t seem to get it. As long as he said it was ok to use –some– adjectives and adverbs, they continued to use way too many. Finally, he figured out that if he just said to remove them entirely that some of the writers would eventually gain enough skill to realize the proper amount.
He returned to the slush pile and discovered that this indirect method of instruction worked much better than trying to explain to people why “sprint” is preferable to “run very, very fast.”
I like this theory, Dave. You may just be right. Good advice often does seem to get taken to an extreme that makes it no longer good advice.
Unfortunately this particular bit of advice made lifeless the writing by folks like me who can’t help but follow rules to an extreme. I spent way too much time cutting words and not nearly enough time making engaging sentences. Which seems silly in retrospect but didn’t at the time.
Cherryh’s Law: Don’t follow any rule off a cliff.
It’s not necessarily wasted time. In order to know when best to break a rules, you first need to thoroughly understand the rules. By “understand the rules” I don’t mean know them by rote; I mean know the rules and grasp the reason for the rule. You can get results just as silly from people following the rules without knowing why as you can from them breaking them.
Love that law!!!
I tend to learn things the hard way. But I think I’m taking lighter, faster lumps these days.