You Can Gleefully Pry My Adverbs from My Cold, Dead Hands.
A brief defense of the most maligned element of grammar.
Adverbs get a bad rap, and it’s a little unfair. Read any grammarian guide or article on how to up your writing game, and you’ll likely find adverbs netting all the hate. Distrust of adverbs was the very first thing my incredibly expensive college education taught me.
My first day of university, I walked into my first class with all the confidence only a first-year student can have. The English Composition professor was irritable, tired, and tenured. Little did I know, she had run out of effs to give about her annual handful of cocky 18-year-olds years ago.
She handed out the syllabus and told us to read it. Do the assignments listed, email her the papers. She then announced that she did not care if we ever made it back to class so long as those emails were in her inbox at their designated times. If we had questions, we were invited to send more emails or catch her during office hours listed on the syllabus.
Then, she walked out of the classroom. I never saw my English Comp professor again. The syllabus outlined every reading assignment and essay as well as a reasonably strict but straightforward style guide.
Top of that style list:
Avoid adverbs and cliches like the plague.
It was the first time I’d ever known adverbs were some sort of cardinal sin in writing. I’d been your standard, brooding in black teen. I’d written plenty of awful fiction and poetry, rich with adverbs and “elevated” language. Modifiers and I had a long, loving history. I emailed my professor about this. She replied that evening:
Adverbs are lazy and useless. Most can be avoided. If the idea can be communicated without adverbs, you didn’t need the adverbs in the first place.
Like my English Comp professor, writers are quick to say, “Go easy on the adverb game.” We all seem to echo her response to their existence— lazy, useless, to be avoided.
Unfortunately for the adverb lover, it’s not what the adverb does in writing; it’s all the writers who have abused them that has mortally wounded the grammar element.
Chief among the adverb’s potential crimes — an adverb can enable passive or underperforming verbs to slip by unseen. It can also push you straight into purple prose territory. Overly descriptive, flowery language flows via adverbs.
But I want to make a case for some adverbs. Not all of them. And not in every circumstance. I’ll even agree that most adverbs are probably the crutch of lazy sentence construction and iffy-at-best style. Hear me out, though.
Let’s take a look at a case study.
She took the briefcase.
Anti-adverbists would argue the way to bolster this sentence is to use a stronger verb.
She snatched the briefcase. She pilfered the briefcase. She seized the briefcase.
I’m not arguing against well-chosen verbs here. Three different verbs create three different feelings in each version of the same sentence. Depending on context and tone, the active, descriptive verbs adjust the picture your words create. You need strong verbs.
But adverbs add a whole other layer of emotion. Watch this.
She cautiously snatched the briefcase. She boisterously pilfered the briefcase. She gently seized the briefcase.
Those same sentences have traveled to different depths by adding an adverb. It is important to note here that the chosen modifiers almost feel as if they are oxymorons. On the surface, they don’t quite fit together.
Using opposing adverbs creates a juxtaposition of feeling and adds tension. One does not usually seize something gently. Pilfering is not typically a boisterous activity. Snatching something and snatching something cautiously look very different.
That’s the trick to successfully adding style with adverbs. Make sure you are adding something, not reinforcing. You wander into purple prose when you start duplicating intent with adverbs.
Back to our gal and her briefcase:
She quickly snatched the briefcase. She slyly pilfered the briefcase. She roughly seized the briefcase.
Quickly, slyly, and roughly add nothing to those sentences that the verbs had not already done. Snatching already implied our briefcase taker was going to be quick about it. It’s the nature of snatching. Duplicating the verbs’ efforts with adverbs is how writers end up in weak verb and purple prose territory.
Adverbs are like rock salt in cooking.
90% of the time, rock salt is unnecessary. It’s clunky, chunky and there are better solutions for adding salt to a recipe. But that 10% of the time, there is no suitable replacement.
Imagine a shiny brown soft pretzel with a fine dusting of table salt. The flavor will be right, but what is a pretzel without those huge, white crystals of salt? It just feels wrong. A savory, spicy Indian chutney begs for a crunchy pop of salt you can only get from the rock form. It’s not the flavor you’re after when you choose rock salt in cooking, its the style.
Active verbs add all the juicy flavor to your writing. Adverbs add style. Used well, they introduce a subtle beauty to your writing. You can adjust the mood with careful application.
Gwenna Laithland is an independent journalist, humorist, and freelance writer in Oklahoma. She writes contemporary sci-fi and is working on her debut novel, Beyond the Sky.
