Wattpad 101: Your guide to the world of Wattpad

What to do about Adverbs

Adverbs are words that describe an adjective or verb. That is there purpose, plain and simple. However, many authors find placing adverbs in your writing to be a sign of weak writing. It is often recommended that you remove most, if not all of your adverbs when you are writing anything official. This emphasis is particular on words ending in -ly. I gently laid him to bed. Gently, I laid him to bed. I laid him to bed, gently. Gently is the adverb, and most professionals will tell you to cut it out. 

So what makes adverbs so bad? The argument is that adverbs are a sign of weakness. People who use adverbs are "telling, not showing". When you're in elementary school, it's an easy way to add description, feeling, and emotion into a story. When you're doing professional work, that emotion should already be self-evident.  

Perhaps the one exception to this rule is dialogue. People talk using adverbs, so cutting them out is counterproductive. Don't change how someone talks in order to maintain ideal grammar.  

That being said, removing all of the -ly's from your text can be quite the challenge. Here are the few tips to get around adverbs and remove them.  

1) Just cut it out -

Most adverbs can be cut out, and you'll find that the sentence doesn't really change its meaning. Actually, definitely, even, extremely, just, really, so, totally, truly, very... These words can be removed from most text without effecting the meaning.

You'll also find dialogue tags with adverbs. For example

"I like it," she said, excitedly.

In theory, your dialogue should be able to convey the emotions of excitement without the need for an adverb. In the cases where you can't change the dialogue to convey the emotion you want, that leads to...

2) Use a stronger verb -

Let's take the previous dialogue sample.

"I like it!" She squealed.

In the context, you can tell she is exclaiming and you can see that she is squealing in excitement and not pain.

"Joe looked at Jim angrily." Can become "Joe glared at Jim." You know he's angry, and an adverb wasn't needed.

Having trouble coming up with one? Welcome to thesaurus.com.

3) Rewrite the whole sentence -

Like the dialogue example in 1, you can rework the wording to convey the emotions better. Don't get too caught on a sentence that forces you to use an adverb. Don't hesitate to cut it up, reform it, and see if you can't say the same thing a different way.

4) Write first, cut later -

Don't obsess about removing adverbs on the spot. Wait and go back later when you are editing. Grammar and editing programs like Hemmingwayapp will automatically track down most of the adverbs in your writing. You can also use the search and find functions and look for the term -ly to track down most of your mistakes. Don't be afraid to make a list of words you should get rid of and just do a search purge ever once in a while.

5) Accept that you may have to use one every once in a while -

Don't treat this like an open invitation, but if you use an adverb or two per 3000 word chapter, it probably won't kill you. Now if you use an adverb or two per sentence... you might need to reconsider your writing style. Still, if you want to use one, use it, but use it grudgingly :P.