In Steven King's book "On Writing" (one of the selections of the shortlived YesAnd book club of years back), he says you should never use an adverb. If you stumble across one, rewrite the sentence. -Greg Wymer
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What is your opinion of adverbs? A necessary evil? Descriptive writing? Death to all ly words? As you may--or may not--know, I've been deep in revision of Black Dragon. Working one on one with another writer has been very educational. I slave over a section until I can't tighten it any more, and then I get it back from my wonderful writing mentor and--lo and behold!--her comments make it sooooo much tighter and better. The last section she gave back with the words, "This section was tight." I looked it over the next morning and found that she lied. It had blue ink all over it, and, as usual, her suggestions made it much better.
Since the first step to conquering an addiction is admitting that one has a problem, I'm here to tell you, I have a problem. I am addicted to ly words. My characters smile slightly, shrug half-heartedly, and wish desperately. Sometime I just can't figure out how to say the same thing without using an adverb. I mean, sometimes I can change the verb and have it mean the same thing--but not always. There are times where I just can't find a verb that means quite the same thing.
However, I've been going through the three step revision program, and now I'm proud to say it's been three days since I've used an ly modifier. My characters give lopsided smiles, shrug one-shoulder, and pray.
Hopefully I don't fall off the band-wagon. : )
Since the first step to conquering an addiction is admitting that one has a problem, I'm here to tell you, I have a problem. I am addicted to ly words. My characters smile slightly, shrug half-heartedly, and wish desperately. Sometime I just can't figure out how to say the same thing without using an adverb. I mean, sometimes I can change the verb and have it mean the same thing--but not always. There are times where I just can't find a verb that means quite the same thing.
However, I've been going through the three step revision program, and now I'm proud to say it's been three days since I've used an ly modifier. My characters give lopsided smiles, shrug one-shoulder, and pray.
Hopefully I don't fall off the band-wagon. : )
4 comments:
Hmmmmm. I guess I've never given it any thought. I'll have to lokk and see if I use adverbs. I'm guessing maybe not. Limbs creak, groan, bow. Creeks gurgle, splash, twist and turn. Critters run fast or fly straight.
I consciously try to eliminate small adgectives, like "the" and most prepositionl phrases whenever I can. I think that alone makes my writing tighter. I also try to keep passive verbs under five percent as tabulated by spell check. I shoot for zero passive verbs, but don't always succeed.
I think we have to be careful that eliminating an adverb might require an extra word to use an adjective. I'll pay more attention in my next piece.
You always bring up such interesting points, Sarah. I learn a lot.
Larry,
I agree--kind of stupid to eliminate an ly word when doing so takes even more words. And sometimes she said sadly is just what I mean. Not she lamented, or she sobbed, but just said sadly.
Still, I am way more aware of those words and therefore if I use an ly word--it is done intentionally. So there. : )
I was thinking about this subject while driving. If someone sneers or smirks we know what that looks like. To say someone smiled,as opposed to saying someone smiled warmly or bashfully, just doesn't tell us anything. We can limp, trudge, pace, etc. but we need "briskly" to describe a fast walk.
Somewhere between Hawthorn's long, eloquent sentences and Hemmingway's short, choppy ones is where most of us fall.
Larry & Sarah - I have to admit that I am an "ly" word hater. And they leap out at me when I'm reading something. Although I also admit that sometimes there is just nothing else that fits ... and then the "ly" word stays.
When I write the shitty-first-draft, I don't worry about "ly" words ... I just write. Then when I start doing my re-writes I circle all those rascals and then I decide (1) whether they can just be eliminated period, or (2) they can be replaced with another word or words, or (3) they absolute(ly), positive(ly) need to stay.
Often times I find that I can just eliminate them altogether. I like that because I'm tightening things up.
When I teach my writing classes, I always express my dissatisfaction with "ly" words and last session I had a gentleman in the class come in with one of my Life With Sally stories and he had counted all my "ly" words. There were many!!! I obviously didn't proofread that one very well. We had a good laugh, but it didn't change my feeling about those pesky "ly" creatures.
~Tricia
PS ... Sarah, you do an amazing job with this blog!
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