So, what's the big deal with adverbs, anyway? I mean, they are technically a legitimate part of speech, right? So, why are they so bad?

In his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King said this, “Adverbs are not your friend. They're like dandelions. If you have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you'll find five the next day, fifty the day after that, and then your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions.”

Notice what he did, there, with all those -ly adverbs?

When I first read this, I was skeptical, to say the least. After all, as I said, adverbs are a legitimate part of speech. I had diagramed hundreds of them in my days as a grammar nerd in college.

When I first brought this topic up to my writer's group, it was to show members an article I had found on the rare occasions when it's okay to use adverbs in our stories. Rather ironic, since my group nicknamed me the Adverb Police.

What caused that change? I read a book that was so peppered with the pests. I almost couldn't finish it. Ever since, a better nickname for me might be Bridgett the Adverb Slayer.

But you still may be wondering, “Why are adverbs such a problem?”

Well, they're the biggest offenders of the “show, don't tell” writing guideline. Adverbs are telling at its core. If we have a bit of dialogue and then we say, the character said, angrily, we're telling the reader the character's angry, instead of showing the anger by using an action beat—like, He slammed a fist on the table.

They're also often redundant in sentences like, “She smiled happily.” Well, a smile is usually happy. I mean, it can be a sarcastic smile or a mirthless smile, but in those cases, you might want to point that out. In general, we assume a smile to indicate happiness, right?

Adverbs are also ineffective in helping readers feel the emotions they're supposed to convey. For example: "Are you crazy?" he asked angrily.

Do you feel anything there? We would be better served to use other methods for showing the emotion instead of telling the reader he was angry.

Adverbs often dilute the power of the writing. For example: He slammed his fist on the table loudly.That's another example of redundancy as well, because if you slam something, it's going to be loud.

They also add unnecessary wordiness without really saying much. Words like very, really, and trulydon't tell us much. If someone's very happy, what does that look like for that person? My very happyand your very happy might be quite different. Or to say someone's very tired, are we talking exhausted, here, on the verge of collapse, or just sleepy?

Adverb elimination is one of the techniques we can use to create what is called Deep Point of View, the most immersive experience for the reader. Deep point of view creates the strongest connection between the reader and our characters.

So, let's do some adverb slaying!

People will often insert adverbs in an attempt to convey character emotion. However, the goal of storytelling is to show the reader the character's emotion and help them experience that emotion with the character. Adverbs narrate the emotion to the reader instead.

Here are a few examples to show you what I mean.

Example 1: The boss angrily slammed his fist on the table.

Example 2: Excitedly, Beth opened the tiny, black box.

Example 3: The teenage girl stepped happily down the stairs in her prom dress.

So, how do we eliminate these adverbs, and what should we do instead?

Sometimes, as with Example 1, we can just remove the adverb, since the character's action is enough to show his emotion.

Here's the revision: The boss slammed his fist on the table.

Notice how much quicker we get to the slamming of the fist, and the emotion we would feel there? This revision also heightens that emotion, since the unnecessary wordiness of the adverb no longer dilutes the tension of the moment. That's also helpful if you have a particular word count you're shooting for.

In other cases, after eliminating the -ly adverb, the writer must replace it with other words, phrases, or even sometimes entire sentences in order to show just how deep the character's emotion runs.

For instance, here's a revision of Example 2: As Beth opened the tiny black box, her heart fluttered and she couldn't hold her fingers still long enough to clutch the gift.

This is showing the depth of her excitement and how it affects her body.

Here's a revision of Example 3: The teenage girl glided down the stairs in her prom dress, one tread at a time. She smiled down at her family like a princess, greeting her favorite subjects. This moment would stay with her for the rest of her life.

This is a much stronger way to convey the depth of her happiness.

Not all adverbs describe emotion. Some are intended to deepen the action and mood of the story.

How can we still convey the meaning of a sentence if the adverb we need to eliminate painted a picture of the action in the story or described some nuance in the mood of the scene?

Use strong, descriptive verbs, instead. I call these powerful verbs.

The verbs we choose can determine how much or how little information the reader receives and even alter the entire meaning of the sentence.

For example: He walked slowly across the street.

Well, how did he walk across the street? Walked is not very descriptive, and slowly...well, how slowly? Why is he walking slowly? It really doesn't tell us much, except he's not moving fast.

Here's one example of a revision: He walked across the street in slow measured strides.

While this is more descriptive, it is wordy and doesn't convey any emotion.

Here's another revision: He trudged across the street.

This implies that the character is weary, perhaps sad, depressed, or sullen. The reader feels the heaviness of his emotion with a single verb.

But what if the character is walking slowly, not because he's sad, depressed, or exhausted? Here's another revision: He strolled across the street.

This character is relaxed, perhaps lighthearted or carefree. He's taking his time.

Other verbs we might want to use in different situations could include: shuffled. We would use this for an old or injured person. Staggered could indicate injury, intoxication, or feeling distraught. Ambled. This person would be happy. Wandered. Well, this is someone who's distracted or aimless.

When you're in the business of adverb-slaying and run across something that is a little trickier, like walked slowly, and you know it's not descriptive enough, conveying emotion, or telling the reader much about the character's physical or mental state, I suggest using a good old, handy thesaurus. You can plug in the verb walked and check out other synonyms for how a person could walk. There are lots. Or you could look up the adverb that you're trying to eliminate and see if the thesaurus gives you any synonyms other than adverbs that end in -ly.

Remember the article I mentioned earlier on the rare occasion when adverbs might be okay to use? Well, are there instances when adverbs are acceptable?

Yes, in small quantities and not close together.

Adverbs may be acceptable in the following situations:

In dialogue: if the adverb fits the character's voice and manner of speaking. I have a saying, I usually tell students and clients: All bets are off in dialogue. Most of the rules can go out the window if it fits your character's voice. However, with -ly adverbs, I still suggest not doing this very often or close together. Now, if a particular character uses a certain adverb all the time, like a character who says totally all the time, then that would be an exception, but still be careful with overusing it, because that can become annoying to the reader.

Adverbs may also be acceptable if the action they're describing is not important enough for a wordy or lengthy revision. Some revisions, as we saw earlier, can require a lot more words than the adverb would use. And if the action isn't all that important to the story, you may just eliminate the adverb altogether. But if the action is significant enough to warrant a little bit of explanation, then you could use the adverb.

This was one of the examples given in the article I read a long time ago. I would provide a link, but I've lost track of it over the years. The example the author gave was a character knocking softly on someone's door. She suggested that, if the soft knock wasn't important, you could eliminate softly,the adverb, and just have the character knock on the door. But what if the character is knocking softly so that she won't wake her mother or a sleeping baby, for example? Then, it's not important enough to go into a lengthy description of how she tiptoed up to the door and is holding the knob so the door won’t rattle as she’s tapping on it. So, you could use the adverb there.

If she's knocking softly because she doesn't want to alert an enemy or an intruder, then you might want to eliminate the adverb and use other actions, like tiptoeing to the door and tapping on it without making a sound.

Finally, adverbs may be acceptable if there's just no other way to say it. I do suggest trying to substitute a strong, descriptive verb first and see if that will work. If not, just keep the adverb and move on.

Also, keep in mind that adverb elimination often happens in the editing phase of the writing process. So, don't let yourself get bogged down when you're writing your first draft, or sometimes even your second draft. Eliminate those adverbs in the revision process, and that way, they won't hold you up in getting the story on the page.

Sometimes, we just can't think of an alternative for an adverb while we're in the process of writing. This even happens to me, on occasion. It's rare that I will let an adverb stay in a sentence, even when I'm writing a first draft, because, as an editor, I've become so used to spotting them. But, there are times when, at the moment, I just can't think of the alternative. So, I'll go ahead and include an adverb and maybe highlight it in a certain color, so I can spot it when I come back to do the revision. That way, your imagination doesn't become stifled while you're trying to write the story. Plus, as the story sits and sort of marinates in our minds, then the alternative may present itself later.