Author Confessions: Those Alluring Adverbs

In case you haven’t played MadLibs lately, adverbs are words that modify a verb, adjective, or another adverb in a sentence. Using them in a piece of fiction, however, can be a sign of a weak verb. Adverbs can suck the meaning and intention from your words. Not all adverbs end in -ly and as some adjectives end in -ly so that’s not necessarily a way to tell for sure. There are five types of adverbs. Did you know that? I was proabably taught that long ago in some English class but it’s amazing how those little details get lost in the mind filled with life. There are:

• Adverbs of manner that tell us how something happened. Examples: fast, loudly, quite, carefully, happily.
• Adverbs of place tell us where. Examples: here, near, outside, there, upstairs.
• Adverbs of time tell us when. Examples: again, early, never, now soon, tomorrow.
• Adverbs of frequency tell us how many times. Examples: always, daily, often, rarely, generally, seldom.
• Adverbs that modify or describe adjectives, verbs, clauses, and other adverbs. Examples: very, not, more, here, always, correctly

Many of these can be essential in a story but a few tend to be overused.

One example:

Using an adverb: “He was really angry.”

Better verb:  “He was furious.” (stronger verb)

More descriptive of the emotion: “His fists clenched and his face grew warm, and his pulse excelerated.”

That was one sentence. Imagine if you will, needing to evaluate every sentence and paragraph in a novel to root out these alluring adverbs that tempt the author to take the lazier route to getting a story written. I’m not saying this is wrong, because a first draft is meant to be edited so having adverbs in there can be useful to get the bare bones of a story on the page, and they can be modified later.

Sometimes the author will decide to keep the adverb. They are not necessarily evil. Or should I rephrase that? Adverbs are not wicked devices devised by satan himself. They are a legitimate part of our English language and they do have a place. Having stated that, it is wise for any author to be aware of these alluring adverbs and work to widen their vocabulary to include stronger verbs that paint the image they want in the the mind of the reader.

Here are a few of the alluring adverbs to be on the watch for. This is not an all inclusive list.

Actually         Totally

Completely     Continually

Constantly     Continuously

Literally     Really

Unfortunately    Ironically

Incredibly   Hopefully

Finally

When an author is doing edits, much like weasel words, the author needs to assess how essential the adverb is in the sentence. Is there a stronger verb that would be more descriptive, or perhaps describing things in more detail?  In dialogue these will be more commonly found and oftentimes remain because that is the way we speak and the writing should reflect that.

If you read last week’s post you are probably surprised I didn’t include SERIOUSLY in this list. There are many adverbs that could be considered. The challenge for the author is to vary their prose to use a wider vocabulary to keep the reader engaged in the story and not annoyed because of weak verbs modified by those alluring adverbs.