Overcoming Adversity Through Adverbs

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy


You've no doubt heard it over and over: never use adverbs in your writing. Sound advice, but if you follow it to the extreme, you could miss out on their very useful properties.

As bad a rep as adverbs have, they're actually pretty handy during a first draft. They allow you to jot down how a character feels or how they say something without losing your momentum. You can keep writing, and go back and revise later.

 They're also helpful red flags during revisions that point out not only potential problem areas in the prose, but "here's a spot where you have a great opportunity to flesh out what your character is doing" areas. Adverbs are your brain's way of telling you about the emotional state of your character, and pointing out a place you might want to examine further. For example:

I walked cautiously across the room to the back door.

Here, cautiously is doing the explaining, telling that this person is nervous in some way. It's a perfectly fine sentence, and we've probably all written some fashion of it at some point. You could find another word for "walked cautiously" like tiptoed, or sneaked, or slipped, but that only solves the adverb problem. It doesn't do anything to capitalize on what your subconscious might be telling you.

Instead, try looking deeper and showing someone being cautious in a way that helps characterize and further develop the scene.

I scanned the room, checking for tripwires, pressure plates, anything that looked like it might be a trap. Looked clear. I darted for the door.

Is it longer than the first adverb sentence? Sure, but it's more interesting and tells you a lot more about what's going on--which probably saves you words somewhere else. There's also a decent chance the description in that scene might be a little flat and needs fleshing out here. If you had a better sense of the character's emotional state, you probably wouldn't have used the adverb in the first place.

Look at your adverbs and what those sentences are describing overall, and then think about other ways to get that idea across. It's not always about replacing it with a stronger word, though that certainly is an option. Sometimes those adverbs are pinpointing an important aspect that would really make the section sing if you fleshed it out.

(Here's more on the freedom of using adverbs in a first draft)

Look at where you use adverbs and identify what you're trying to do with them. They're telling the reader what's going on, but if what's in your head doesn't make it to the page, you can wind up with a reader/writer disconnect.

"That's just wrong," Bob said angrily.

Here, the adverb is used to denote anger, but it's a lazy word because it makes the reader have to decide what Bob's anger looks like and how he acts when he's angry. And readers might get it wrong. One reader might think Bob screams and yells, another might think he gets real quiet and dangerous. But if you think Bob cracks jokes so he doesn't blow up, what you write for him won't connect right with the reader, because they'll have different ideas in their minds and read the words in that context.

(Here's more on adverb basics and how to use them)

I'd always thought of adverbs as placeholder words, but they can also play helpful role in editing. They're not the enemy, they're just your subconscious telling you to, "do more here."

How do you feel about adverbs? Do you use them in early drafts? 
 
Find out more about show, don't tell with my book, Understanding Show, Don't Tell (And Really Getting It).

With in-depth analysis, Understanding Show, Don't Tell (And Really Getting It) teaches you how to spot told prose in your writing, and discover why common advice on how to fix it doesn't always work. It also explores aspects of writing that aren’t technically telling, but are connected to told prose and can make prose feel told, such as infodumps, description, and backstory.

This book will help you:

• Understand when to tell and when to show
• Spot common red flag words often found in told prose
• Learn why one single rule doesn't apply to all books
• Determine how much telling is acceptable in your writing
• Fix stale or flat prose holding your writing back

Understanding Show, Don't Tell (And Really Getting It) is more than just advice on what to do and what not to do—it’s a down and dirty examination and analysis of how show, don’t tell works, so you can adapt the “rules” to whatever style or genre you’re writing. By the end of this book, you’ll have a solid understanding of show, don’t tell and the ability to use it without fear or frustration.

Available in paperback and ebook formats.

Janice Hardy is the award-winning author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, including The Shifter, Blue Fire, and Darkfall from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. The Shifter, was chosen for the 2014 list of "Ten Books All Young Georgians Should Read" from the Georgia Center for the Book.

She also writes the Grace Harper urban fantasy series for adults under the name, J.T. Hardy.

When she's not writing novels, she's teaching other writers how to improve their craft. She's the founder of Fiction University and has written multiple books on writing.

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