I will probably always hesitate to give any specific advice on sentence structure and word use, even if ever reach a level of success/notoriety that anyone might ask me for any. As a new writer, I've found a lot of the nitty-gritty advice in random blogs . . . less than helpful. For example, my blog's attempt at a clever name comes from something I've seen more than once:
A new writer asks for their work to be critiqued. They're excited, nervous, etc. They want to know if they have an interesting idea, if their characters are engaging, if they can keep anyone reading . . . and somewhere in their prose, they've put something along the lines of "That's great!" Mary said happily. They do not yet know this is a writing faux pas.
A more experienced writer comes along and strikes out the word 'happily'. They could explain that in this particular case, happily is unnecessary because "That's great!", specially with the exclamation point, is pretty clearly a happy statement. The adverb here is belaboring an unnecessary point and feels intrusive. It's not enhancing the scene.
But that's a lot of words, and the more experienced writer has things to do. So they just write something short and simple like "adverbs are for amateur/clumsy/lazy writers; let the dialogue speak for itself". Which is less words, but if you noticed, doesn't actually explain anything.
The new writer's probably mortified by this point. They want to eliminate that adverb ASAP. They may have to look up what an adverb is, then somehow arrive at the conclusion that an adverb is anything that ends with -ly. Possibly from writing blogs. Then they train themselves to search and destroy those -ly word . . . and replace them with adverbial statements.
"That's great!" Mary said happily becomes "That's great!" Mary said in a happy tone.
Our new writer goes off, proud that they're now less new. When it's their turn to help out a new writer, they might sagely give the advice that -ly words are clumsy and amateurish, and they should describe the characters' tone of voice instead.
Hi, Cleo!
ReplyDeleteI am guilty of using too many adverbs, LOL Now I try to learn and use action verbs more happily, LOL
I think I've become an adverb champion. It's less about never using them and more about knowing when to use them :)
Delete"It's less about never using them and more about knowing when to use them." Yes, oh yes. I fell into the trap of ADVERBS ARE BAD a long time ago, and I still try to avoid them when I can, but every now and then one really does do the job.
ReplyDeleteOh, there's so much conventional writing advice that gets to me, but this adverb thing is the most annoying!!! If an adverb is the right word for the sentence, then it's the right gawd.
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