When I started writing, I was surrounded by lists - mostly lists of what you can’t and shouldn’t do.
For example, watch out for adverbs. Beware! They are not your friend! Hmm, I loved adverbs. I have to say I truly LOVED adverbs. And so, being a rule-follower, I meticulously (nice adverb) culled them from my writing.
Then I examined my work. Rather dead sounding. And so carefully, cautiously and rather gleefully I might say, I started to rescue a few of my favourite adverbs (see above) and bring them back to the light.
And last night, reading ‘Love Walked In’ by Marisa de Los Santos (Penquin 2005) I found a fellow adverb queen. She swims in adverbs, dances with adverbs, highlights her adverbs. I was awe-struck.
Of course, the fact that she has obtained a Ph.D in literature and creative writing certainly assists her knowledge base of what constitutes stellar writing. Probably.
Ms. de Los Santos knows when and how to utilize her adverbs to make her writing style creative and distinctive. Absolutely.
Moral of the story? Yes, listen to the rules but when the story demands that a different route might be taken, listen to yourself. And you could discover that you’re the one creating the new dance.
Unexpectedly.
I definitely, absolutely, completely abhor adverbs in my writing .
Seriously though – oops…
I had a fabulous book called Steering the Craft by the brilliant Ursula Le Guin, chock full of writing exercises. I often use the one that suggests writing a page or so of narrative with no adjectives or adverbs – my journalism students hate it because they can’t manage a sentence without them.
In fact, one student *began* the exercise with an adjective! It’s a great way to make people aware of how often they use these words and how careful we must be to make sure we use them only to make the story stronger.
Ah, but how I love adverbs, lovely, lovely things that they are. I, too, overuse them, and then judiciously cull them, leaving my work somehow…flat. Sometimes we can get carried away with all those ‘rules’ and go too far the other way. The challenge is finding that happy medium. The wonderful E.C. Sheedy once suggested to me to try writing my first draft without (gasp! choke!) any adverbs, and then go back and add what I think it needed.
I’ll have to check out Marisa’s book. Thanks, Jodie!
Sometimes the rule books make your writing too much like everyone else’s. I guess I’ll go by the rules for much of the propose, but
use language as it is spoken for dialogue and interior monologue.
In search of Voice,
Sharron