Adverbs

One of the other tidbits I have learned in my courses at UofT, is to get rid of the adverbs. Why, I asked, would I want to remove a perfectly acceptable part of speech? After all, adverbs and I go 'way back. In fact, I think it was Grade 6 when we were introduced, and I started learning how to parse a sentence.

The reasoning is this: if you are using adverbs, your verbs may be weak. For example, I can say

Darrell walked confidently into the room

or I can say

David strutted into the room

or

Janet sashayed into the room.

The second two examples tell us as much about the person's state of mind, as they do about the style of walk.

As I was writing my novel in the fall, if I had an adverb, I would pause and try to think of a stronger verb. But there were times when the correct word just wasn't there for me. So, I used the weak verb with its modifier. After the rough draft was complete, I went through the document searching for 'ly' and replacing those phrases with stronger verbs. A few have been left in, mostly in dialogue, because people use adverbs in everyday communication. It's part of our normal speech patterns.

However, after reading sections BAM and AAM (before adverb removal and after adverb removal), I can say that the parts without adverbs are definitely stronger, and pack more punch. The adverbs seemed to point up how weak the verbs were ... or, maybe, I'm just noticing it now.