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| Me in finals week. Anybody. Somebody. Halp. |
So. Adverbs. Over in my internet hidey hole (AW), I often see newbies asking why Stephen King hates adverbs and why the road to hell is paved with them and are adverbs bad?
1. Because even people who've sold a gagillion books can be absolutely and unequivocally full of it.
2. The road to hell is paved with absolutist advice.
3. No. Adverbs are not bad. Not in and of themselves.
I am reasonably sure what the man meant was something along the lines of 'Adverbs frequently suffer abuse at the hands of mediocre authors who don't realize 'walking swiftly' can be replaced with 'running' 9 out of 10 times,' but because he is who he is, his fanbase began the great adverb witch hunt of the twenty-first century. And here's what I have to say about it all:
EVERYTHING IS BAD WHEN USED INCORRECTLY AND/OR IN EXCESS.
Adjectives. Present tense verbs (you'll want to gouge your eyes out after reading things like 'I was jogging and talking while checking my phone'). Adverbs.
You'll notice I've used quite a few in this post; partly because the devil made me do it, and partly to serve a point. Some people (Mr. King is likely one of them) will find this to be an atrocious mess and want to spear every -ly word on a toasting fork. That's fine and good and dandy, and yes, I do believe self-control is a good thing in this arena. Using too many of any one thing weakens writing by making it repetitive and dilutes the message by irritating the reader. But adverbs are not bad. Bad writing is bad, and bad writers will also have bad plots and be a walking TV Tropes ad (don't go on it. Just don't. You'll never be able to leave) while abusing adverbs. They're just as much a part of the English language as verbs and nouns, and while I might like them, this post isn't (much) for that reason.
Because the advice to avoid adverbs probably wasn't about ignoring their existence indefinitely (or maybe it was; King is not on my preferred reading list); it was probably more about recognizing that adverbs are like hot sauce: the right amount makes everything even more delicious, but too much just makes you puke.
You'll notice I've used quite a few in this post; partly because the devil made me do it, and partly to serve a point. Some people (Mr. King is likely one of them) will find this to be an atrocious mess and want to spear every -ly word on a toasting fork. That's fine and good and dandy, and yes, I do believe self-control is a good thing in this arena. Using too many of any one thing weakens writing by making it repetitive and dilutes the message by irritating the reader. But adverbs are not bad. Bad writing is bad, and bad writers will also have bad plots and be a walking TV Tropes ad (don't go on it. Just don't. You'll never be able to leave) while abusing adverbs. They're just as much a part of the English language as verbs and nouns, and while I might like them, this post isn't (much) for that reason.
Because the advice to avoid adverbs probably wasn't about ignoring their existence indefinitely (or maybe it was; King is not on my preferred reading list); it was probably more about recognizing that adverbs are like hot sauce: the right amount makes everything even more delicious, but too much just makes you puke.
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