Mind Your Adverbs

I’m sure if you’ve done any reading about good writing, you’ve come across advice that suggests that you should be careful with descriptive words. It is a common criticism of novice writers’ work that the prose is over-littered with adjectives. However, the problem lies more, in my opinion, in the liberal use of adverbs. What’s the difference?

At the most basic level, an adjective describes a noun or pronoun whilst an adverb describes or modifies everything else. Although this is a crude and elementary definition, and of course, it can get a little more complicated than this, this simple distinction is enough to help most people determine which is which.

Often the biggest problems lie with adverbs that end in –ly (i.e., quickly), rather than simple adjectives like red.

For example, you will often see sentences written something like:  He quickly grabbed his briefcase and ran out the door. Or: Excitedly, she ripped open the envelope.

I’ve done this myself, particularly on first drafts, and I think it is born of a need to try to make clear to the reader how something was done. As writers, we want the reader to understand completely how we see the scene unfolding. But there are two things to consider. First, the reader is often more capable of understanding this from the context, and, second, there is often a much better, more interesting, way to get the information across.

Let’s take another look at the first of the examples above: He quickly grabbed his briefcase and ran out the door.  Here, quickly is the villain. Quickly is an adverb, and in this case, totally unnecessary. The word grabbed already implies a quick action, so quickly adds nothing to the action. In fact, this is often true of many of the adverbs that are over-used.

The same is true of the second example. Ripped, in this context, implies that the action is performed with either great excitement or, possibly, anger. You might think that excitedly informs the reader of which, but, if you consider the rest of the prose, it is likely that clues to which are already present.

Readers are often intelligent enough to ‘get it’ from the rest of the text. For example, if the protagonist of this sentence had already been known to be waiting for the results of a recent interview, then ripped implies that she opens the envelope in a state of high excitement. On the other hand, if she was dreading the results, another verb would tell us this, such as hesitated (She hesitated as she opened the envelope).  Finally, the context might have made the action so clear that you may not need any verb other than a simple opened.

If you find that your writing is criticised for having too many adjectives or adverbs, or if you simply want to avoid this criticism, take a look back at your prose. You might find that you can either remove the offending element, or reconsider the active verb, and you should find that your writing is a lot clearer and much improved.

Of course, you can also have too many adjectives: the big bad brown angry bear. Again, a little judicious pruning might improve your prose. Of course, you may also be guilty of lazy word choices. For example, a huge stone, could be written as: a boulder. And, it would be wise to be careful with all of your descriptive terms.

But, in my experience, adverbs are the greatest villains so mind your adverbs!

Dialogue

Dialogue is an important part of your prose, it is one of the elements that helps to create character. But one common mistake that many beginner (and sometimes not so beginner) writers make when reporting dialogue is to write too correctly.

If you listen to people speaking, each person has their own idiolect (way of speaking) and this is not always just a case of their accent. Some people use long, complex and meandering phrases, others speak in few words. Some people hesitate a lot when they speak, or never finish a sentence. Others may use a more comprehensive vocabulary or repeat themselves often.

A lot of writers enjoy people-watching, we are interested in the way people behave. But have you done some people-listening lately? The next time you spend time in a cafe, or waiting for train, or even at a bus stop, try just listening to people as they chatter around you. Try to make out the different ways of speaking of each of the participants. If you can do so discretely, you may even want to make a note or two on particularly interesting aspects of their speech. Maybe one takes charge of the conversation and doesn't leave much room for the other interlocutor. Or perhaps one speaks in clichés. Often you will find that it's what someone doesn't say that's the most intriguing. Do women speak differently than men? Do the young speak differently than the old? I think you're getting the idea.

Now, when it comes to your own writing, it is important to make the characters come alive through their dialogue. As with all aspects of your prose, dialogue should be there for a reason. You should try to give the impression of natural dialogue without confusing the writing with too many ums, and ahs. One or two will give your reader enough information to be able to get the point if your character is hesitant or shy.

Your character does not need to speak in correct English. Too many beginner stories are spoiled by having characters speak as they would write, but we don't do that in real life. So listen as carefully as you watch to learn how people speak to each other.

Let's look at an example:

'Hello, Marie,' said Sally.
'Hello, Sally,' said Marie.
'Did you go to meet Harold at the train station?'
'Harold was not at the train station on time.'
'When did Harold get there then, Sally?'
'Apparently, he arrived almost an hour later than he was supposed to. So I had already gone when he arrived.'

Can you tell anything about the characters from the way they speak? From just this snippet, could you tell who was speaking if it wasn't for the speech tags (i.e. said Sally)? Can you see how the two characters speak too correctly? Of course, maybe you intend them to. It is possible to have one or more characters who speak this way, but it should be a deliberate choice, and, preferably, not the way every character speaks.

Try for some variation, however small (rhythm, sentence length, pauses, ums, colloquialisms, contractions, etc.), then you are more likely to create dynamic dialogue. Done well, your readers will be able to identify each speaker from their dialogue alone. But don't go over the top, unless you are going for comic effect, or it is justified by the situation.

I'd suggest that this is a very uninteresting passage of dialogue, and I don't just mean because of the subject. Still, let's see if there is anything we can do, without changing the meaning or the important information (what important information, I hear you say, well, let's pretend), to make it a bit more exciting.

'Hi.'
'Oh. Hello, Sally,' said Marie.
'So, did you get there on time?'
'Huh?'
'To meet Harold. Did you get there on time?'
'Um. Well, he wasn't there.'
'You're joking!'
'Well, at least, not, um, not when I was.'
'What d'you mean?'
'Well, turns out he was about an hour late. So we, um, kind of missed each other.'

OK, so this isn't the most inspiring of conversations, but hopefully, you can see that the dialogue is already a lot more interesting. It is more like people might really speak. Maybe, you've noticed that Marie is a little less sure when speaking than Sally.

So, if your character is quiet and shy, she might speak very little and she may use hesitations. However, if your character is strong and loud, then he might talk a lot, using long sentences. A young person might speak almost in monosyllables, whilst an older one might speak with old-fashioned terms.

So, take a look at your dialogue and try to see what you can do to make it sound more like your characters(s). This will help bring your characters alive on the page and your writing a little more exciting.

Apology

Dear readers,

I know that I haven't been around for a couple of weeks, but I've not always been able to get to my PC or find time. I've been very busy casting a movie in Leeds, writing my novel for my MA, editing a book for another author, planning my adult writing workshops, and, running workshops for kids at Manchester Art Gallery. However, I am hoping to be able to add more to this blog at the weekend.