Writing Tip: How Use Adverbs in Fiction

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Transcript:
If you have been writing for long, you have probably heard the admonition: Don’t use adverbs!

Or, my favorite: “The road to hell is paved with adverbs,”

Perhaps you have heard it in a more constructive way, but often, the advice is:

Open your document
Press Ctrl+f “
Search for “ly”
Delete all

Following this advice will likely make your writing worse. Further, it won’t rid your work of all adverbs. Let’s break this down.

What are adverbs?

Adverbs are simply words that describe a verb.

This can be HOW the verb is being carried out:

“Punch wildly”

“Lounge slothfully”

It can be WHEN a verb takes place:

“Shopped yesterday”

“Feast soon”

It can be WHERE a verb is happening:

“Walked out the door”

“Bowed before the king”

Note that not all of these adverbs end in LY.

When should I avoid adverbs?

Adverbs are to be avoided when they are redundant, when they support a weak verb or when they simply make no sense. They are also not ideal to use in dialogue tags or to display emotion.

Redundant Adverbs

An adverb is redundant when it says the same thing that the verb does. For instance, to say someone “ran quickly” is not adding any helpful information for the reader. We already get a sense that if someone is running, they are doing so quickly. Similar culprits include “whispered softly”, “thrashed wildly” and perhaps even “stared blankly”. In all these instances the verb and the context should be sufficient. Drop the adverb.

Adverbs that support a weak verb

Here we have something a little different. Perhaps your adverb is helping to clarify something about the verb. In this case, we must ask: Is there a better verb?

Take, for example, these verb + adverb combos and their fixes.

“She drank ravenously” - She gulped

“He said loudly” - He shouted

“he looked around” - He surveyed

This is, in fact, an excellent opportunity to use your “Ctrl+F” function and find all of your adverbs. Instead of deleting them, however, ask yourself “is there a better verb? Sometimes the answer is no- then let the adverb stay! It’s not a crime.

Adverbs that make no sense

This happens more than you might expect. In fact, you may not even realize it when you read it. Often this happens when a writer is attempting to describe two things at once- how a character is feeling and what they are doing.

“He cleaned the kitchen sullenly.”

What this is supposed to mean is that this guy cleaned the kitchen and he was sullen. It’s not a great sentence anyway, it’s just what I thought of as I was writing this! But you can’t actually clean something in a sullen way- it has no bearing on the verb at all. In this case, it is better to give some visual or sensory clues about the state of the character as he cleaned the kitchen.

“He cleaned the kitchen with his head hung low.”

Rule of thumb: don’t use adverbs to convey emotions.

Adverbs in dialogue tags

This one is as close to a hard rule as they come in my book. There are very few reasons that an adverb is appropriate after the word “said” in a dialogue tag.

Some Examples:

“He said menacingly”

“She said dejectedly”

Eww.

There is always another way. Find it!

Adverbs to display emotion

This is the topic for another article, but the rule is a good one. Convey emotions to a reader through physical descriptors and dialogue. Don’t tell me that something was done or said “sadly”- tell me what someone would see to understand that the person performing the action was sad.

One important exception: Dialogue

When people talk naturally, they use adverbs frequently. It’s natural. This means that your characters are going to be speaking sentences that contain adverbs. Don’t hamstring your dialogue by removing these without reason.

Final words

Do not be afraid to have adverbs in your writing. Especially as you work through beta readers and critique groups- you will hear the rule touted often. Don’t be tempted to purge your work; but do be tempted to make sure every word you use in your writing is the right one!