Death to adverbs!

[fushingfeef]

Ever since reading "On Writing", I am reluctant to ever use an adverb in the written format! Every time I see an adverb that I've written, it's like a little Stephen King angel appears on my shoulder and says "You don't need that adverb! Strike it down!"

Has this happened to anyone else?

[Moderator]

Yes, as I am guilty of adverb proliferation in my writing and have thought to myself WWSS (what would Stephen say?) if he saw it, but continue to do it anyway. :smile2: If I was writing for publication (this doesn't count), I would be more judicious in my adverb usage. On second thought, I realize I have sometimes edited my emails to him after noticing too many adverbs. :blush:

[Brian - Metro]

After we read On Writing, I think we axed about 500 adverbs from our script. It was pathetic, and exactly what Stephen meant by "trying to hard." They suck.

-B

[Bryan James]

I kill some. The rest I just type very slowly.

~BJS

[Doc Wilson]

I took to heart his advice to quit searching for synonyms for "said". My characters immediately stopped interjecting and exclaiming.

[Bryan James]

I took to heart his advice to quit searching for synonyms for "said". My characters immediately stopped interjecting and exclaiming.

"I even try to avoid 'said' now. If someone can't follow who's saying what in my dialogue, I haven't done my job," Bryan said.

[JohnDalglish]

I took to heart his advice to quit searching for synonyms for "said". My characters immediately stopped interjecting and exclaiming.

Hi,

Indeed, me too (he said).

I can't stand premature interjection.

Long days and pleasant nights

[ChristineB]

Yes, as I am guilty of adverb proliferation in my writing and have thought to myself WWSS (what would Stephen say?) if he saw it, but continue to do it anyway. :smile2: If I was writing for publication (this doesn't count), I would be more judicious in my adverb usage. On second thought, I realize I have sometimes edited my emails to him after noticing too many adverbs. :blush:

This is just too funny Ms. Mod. I am sure I would do the exact same thing in your case. :)

You must remember SK doesn't nix ALL the adverbs in his writing and so maybe a few can stay.

What seems so funny to me is that, from my POV, it seems all english writing teachers have some pet peeve. My college english comp 1 teacher absolutely hated (I could have replaced that adverb and verb with loathed, I guess) both the "being" verbs (non-action verbs) and the pharse "there are, is, were, was" at the start of a sentence. Suffice it to say, if you had one of those in a paper for her you were automatically going to start with a C and go down from there. Now I read how SK hates adverbs, just a funny thing to me.

[XD3V0NX]

Yes, God Yes. Adverbs need to die. I don't even use them, and when I do, it's rare. But when I see someone else use an adverb in their writing, I can't help but get annoyed. I'm with you right there. Instead of Money being the root to all evil, it is Adverbs that are the root to all evil.
And another thing, Adverbs are like Satan's slaves! >x]

[Srbo]

Yeah, well, what can I do, I try to write to the best of my limited abilities since English is not my first language.

Seriously. :wink2:

[wally wonder]

Ever since reading "On Writing", I am reluctant to ever use an adverb in the written format! Every time I see an adverb that I've written, it's like a little Stephen King angel appears on my shoulder and says "You don't need that adverb! Strike it down!"

Has this happened to anyone else?

i noticed sk's adverb use before i read on writing, and after reading that section, and maybe before, i'd noticed the use of adverbs by others, sometimes to good effect. but too often it sounded like satire, comedic relief, something.

upgraded my offline 'puter, new word program. i like using the tool that tells me how many words i've got going, check to see what the grammar/spellcheck says. the old program, microsoft word 95 had some issues that bugged me, but this new one, other than being politically correct--it don't like it when i use words like "stewardess" or "the little guy", or the word "blonde" standing alone.

it also has a problem w/contractions. so when you imagine sk standing over your shoulder saying "you don't need need that adverb!" i have to wonder what's his take on contractions? seems like they must be present in dialogue, but how about the rest of it--and that's something i haven't taken notice of, but plan on being aware of it the next time i pick up an sk story.

[PatInTheHat]

Now I have certain instincts, and I wholly lack certain others. (Is that "wholly" in the right place?) For instance, I am dead to adverbs; they cannot excite me. To misplace an adverb is a thing which I am able to do with frozen indifference; it can never give me a pang. . . . There are subtleties which I cannot master at all--they confuse me, they mean absolutely nothing to me--and this adverb plague is one of them.
(Mark Twain, "The Contributors' Club," The Atlantic Monthly, June 1880)

I think I'm absolutely positively, and quite possibly cheerfully even boastfully, a freakin' junky:cool2:!
(I don't even know wholly what the place is, much less if it's in exactly the right place:blush:)

[LorraineNeal]

I would love if Mr King could weigh in on this question: could the use of adverbs, particularly in dialogue attribution, be not only acceptable but encouraged in the young adult market? The Harry Potter books for example are rife with the use of adverbs (at least the first three that I have read). Thoughts?

[omm poppa mow mow]

Maybe let the wall street folk know?.....go stand at the conjunction junction and dance?

[sam peebles]

I've read the entire Harry Potter series (which King loves), and you're absolutely right, Rowling uses a crapload of adverbs. It didn't really bother me, but she keeps with it, even in the latter books.

I have no idea what King would say in regards to the adverb use in young adult novels, but in On Writing, he specifically attacks their usage in describing dialogue. That's a big no no.

[Mookie]

Fushing, Haven't you heard? The road to hell is paved with adverbs! ( that is one of my favorite SK quotes) I just helped my daughter do an English assignment where we had to underline the adverbs LOL. adverbs everywhere, adverbs are everywhere.....adverbs adver.........:tongue:

[Moderator]

My guess is the answer would still be a "no" since he specifically addressed the issue of adverbs in his review of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix which you can read in its entirety by following the link here (http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20397912_462861,00.html) to download the review he submitted to EW. They've scanned his original draft as a PDF but in a nutshell he says "The part of speech that indicates insecurity....is the adverb, and Ms. Rowling seems to have never met one she didn't like, especially when it comes to dialogue attribution." For the record, he's a huge Harry Potter fan so it had nothing to do with a dislike of the series.

[omm poppa mow mow]

check out what elmore leonard says....10 rules for writers?....the title is something like that....and he more or less says the same thing...

[omm poppa mow mow]

yeah, here it is, from elmore leonard's 10 rules for writers....or a part of it...i'm not that ambitious...:

"i have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances 'full of rape and adverbs'."

rule #4 never use an adverb to modify the verb "said"...

[prufrock21]

So what's wrong with serendipitously?
http://www.stephenking.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=13301&thumb=1&d=1313676786 (http://www.stephenking.com/forums/album.php?albumid=1438)

[blunthead]

I took to heart his advice to quit searching for synonyms for "said". My characters immediately stopped interjecting and exclaiming.I saw a Dean Koontz interview during which he shared that he'd read an author who'd used up words with which to substitute "said", and so wrote that an excited female character, instead of "said", "ejaculated". The interviewer and he laughed and the interviewer, a male, said, "On no! Don't take that away from us!".

[Patricia A]

Harry Potter was a wonderful read, the adverbs seemingly worked for me. :biggrin2:
I understand what Stephen King means but I think the use of adverbery is safe in the hands of writers who know how to sling them with aplomb, J.K Rowling is an example.

[blunthead]

This is what the doctor says (see Mod's link above ):

...You say this one's better than Azkaban, better than Goblet of Fire. Is there still room for improvement?

ANSWER: Heavens, yes. In terms of Ms. Rowling's imagination--which should be insured by Lloyd's of London (or perhaps the Incubus Insurance Company) for the 2 or 3 billion dollars it will ultimately be worth over the span of her creative lifetime, which should be long--she is now at the absolute top of her game. As a writer, however, she is often careless (characters never just put on their clothes; they always "get dressed at top speed") and oddly, almost sweetly, insecure. [B]The part of speech that indicates insecurity ("Did you really hear me? Did you really understand me?") is the adverb, and Ms. Rowling seems to have never met one she didn't like, especially when it comes to dialogue attribution. Harry's godfather, Sirius, speaks "exasperatedly"; Mrs. Weasley (mother of Harry's best friend, Ron) speaks "sharply"; Tonks (a clumsy with with punked-up, parti-colored hair) speaks "earnestly". As for Harry himself, he speaks quietly, automatically, nervously, slowly, quietly, and--often, given his current case of raving adolescence--ANGRILY.

These minor flaws of diction are endearing rather than annoying; they are the logical side-effect of a natural storyteller who is obviously bursting with crazily vivid ideas and having the time of her life. Yet Ms. Rowling could do better, and for the money, probably should. In any case there's no need for all those annoying adverbs (he said firmly), which pile up at the rate of eight or ten a page (over 870 pages, that comes to almost a novella's length of -ly words). Because really we hear, we understand, we enjoy. If the sales figures show nothing else, they show that. And if by the end of Chapter Three we don't know that Harry Potter is one utterly, completely, and pervasively angry young man, we haven't been paying attention.

I think the above explains sK's complaint about adverbs sufficiently. My interpretation of the adverb problem is simple: writers use adverbs habitually, out of their own insecurity and unwillingness to find the right words. Adverbs are an annoying habit, as are certain phrases.

You know?

[LorraineNeal]

Thank you so much for the link to his review...I shall read it eagerly ;-) Interesting how her prolific use of adverbs in no way hurt sales...is this perhaps due to the audience being young adult? Curious...

[Pucker]

Bosh!

Stuff and nonsense, all of this!

I don’t know as I would be so quick to arbitrarily or indiscriminately excise adverbs from my writing were I you (or even were I me), or to wholly accept the casually dubious wisdom of a writer who often doesn’t even take his own advice.

Consider:

A vaudeville magician (if such a thing were to still exist) might be laughably inept, or a clumsy dancer could be said to be charmingly inept. Conversely, a certain chief executive (for instance) may be dangerously inept. These are important distinctions that cannot be made without the adverb.

And what of tone?

The depths of hangover are perhaps not accurately depicted unless the poor unfortunate is violently ill . . . or the young lovers’ heartbreak inadequately described if they are less than desperately forlorn. Even in what should be (but isn’t any longer) the last bastion of concision -- journalism -- in among all the Ws is an H, which stands for How? . . . and you can’t efficiently describe How? without the adverb.

And even if none of that were remotely true, prose should have personality (or so say I) and the adverb can often be a comfortably decorative corsage on an otherwise forgettably mundane evening dress. In other words, it’s okay to think for yourself, Strunk and White be damned!

Never let pedantry-for-hire (even if the pedant in question is your personal hero) overrule your sense of whimsy . . . if you’ve got one.

Just so long as you don't go getting mirthfully carried away.

:wink2:

[NPASDK]

Just finished your book, then went back to a manuscript of my own and encountered:

"We lived in a seaside town, and this guy would go down to the docks when the fishing boats came in, and simply ask for bags of the stuff they were going to throw away. Lots of fish heads and other remains put nutrients into his back yard and made his gorgeous garden grow. (I never did ask him about his car – it must have been the stinkiest set of wheels on the planet.)"

Guess what word got dumped. Thanks!