Death to adverbs!

[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.
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 [bold text added]):

...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. 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.

[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!