Kicking the Adverb Habit
I really like adverbs.
I absolutely love to liberally pepper my stories with meticulously chosen words to describe my vividly imagined scenes as accurately as humanly possible, so that my carefully selected beta readers - who are anxiously awaiting the chance to read my expertly worded prose - will be positively blown away.
I'm not that bad, but I am guilty of over-using adverbs. And I know I'm not the only one.
Adverbs are easy. You toss a few in and feel like you've painted a clear picture of your character as they delivered that scathing rebuttal. The trouble is that adverbs can make us lazy writers. And they can actually take away from the reader's experience by not allowing them to create the the scene in their own imagination. Adjectives can be the same way.
As I'm reading through my manuscript and marking it up, I'm trying to eliminate as many adverbs as I can and find better ways to write what I mean.Here an example from my first draft:
"I had no idea your parents felt that way."
Danny shrugged sadly and said softly, "Neither did I."
You get the idea of how Midor feels, but the writing just isn't very good. Here's how I changed it:
"I had no idea your parents felt that way."
Danny hung his head. "Neither did I."
It's not perfect, but it's better. Just that one little change made it clear how Danny replied without having to spell it out. It might even do more to show his shame at what he just revealed to his friend. Plus it just looks cleaner.
In On Writing, Stephen King said this about adverbs:
"With adverbs, the writer usually tells us that he or she is afraid he/she isn't expressing himself/herself clearly, that he or she is not getting the point across."
I think he's right. We're excited about the story we're telling and we want to transport our readers to that same place. But we need to trust our readers and give them the chance to use their own imaginations.
King goes on to say this:
"To put it another way, they're like dandelions. If you have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day...fifty the day after that..and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions. By then you see them for the weeds they really are, but by then it's - GASP!! - too late."
When it comes to a first draft, I'll continue to write whatever comes to mind. First drafts, after all, aren't for crafting amazing prose. They're for getting the story out of our head and onto paper. But when the time comes to revise, I'm challenging myself to dig out the weeds before they become a problem.