If you’ve looked any writing books or magazines, you’re likely to see an article with a rule stating that adverbs and adjectives should be eliminated. I don’t like it when things are stated as absolutes like this. It makes it sound like adverbs and adjective should never be used instead of making suggestions on how to eliminate the fluff and keep the best.
Adverbs and adjectives are like salting your food:
No salt – bland food/bland story. We had a writer in our critique group who believed in zero-tolerance of adverbs and adjectives. He took a weed whacker to his story to remove every single one. Critters actually told him to put some back in because his story was very bland.
Too much – overseasoned food/overseasoned story. Several of us were trying to crit this one writer who kept coming back and asking for critique. In every sentence, she didn’t just describe something; she added several adjectives and adverbs. We got stuff like “The reluctant yellow sun dipped slowly and languidly behind the dome-shaped rock nestled comfortably as an anchor point between two thin patches of brown sand finely ground by a tempermental green sea.”
So just the right amount of seasoning is important for a story. And it’s not as simple as counting how many adverbs or adjectives to use. Just like in cooking, it depends on the individual dish. Some things that can be done:
If you see a word qualifying a verb, take a moment to look the verb up in the dictionary. I found that I sometimes had phrases like “slammed hard” or “carressed gently.” When I looked these particular examples, I discovered that the verb meant the same thing as the adverb. Repetition alert! It’s an easy edit that makes the sentence sound better and the book a smidgeon shorter.
Look for a verb-adverb combination that can be replaced by one word that does the same thing (also a great help for tightening the novel). Example: “walked quickly.” How about dashed instead? A thesaurus will help identify similar words, then look in the dictionary to see if that’s the right one for what you want to convey.
Finally, look for this bit of overseasoning that’s common: Describing the obvious. Particularly with dialogue, ‘it’s easy to say “he said angrily” when it might be obvious reading the conversation.
But again, everything is a judgement call based on the individual sentence and even the sentences around it. A chef tastes his dish as he cooks it and makes adjustments accordingly.
