Adverbs...

[Haulover]

...
Maybe other verbs for shouting would remove the ambiguity, (barked, pleaded, ...)

^^This

Adverbs are terrible. They weaken the writing and make you lazy. Why add any action to dialogue if you can just add an adverb to the speaker tag? *facepalm*

And ^^this

Agree with you there. "Her voice choked with anger" is much better than just writing "she said angrily."

especially And ^^this

There will obviously be situations where an adverb is the right way to express the narrative, but those situations are rare, and can easily be avoided.

 

[SimonDoom]

^^This



And ^^this



especially And ^^this

There will obviously be situations where an adverb is the right way to express the narrative, but those situations are rare, and can easily be avoided.

I go back and forth on the example given. "voice choked with anger" is a cliche, so I'm not sure it's better than "said angrily." It also depends on how much anger you are trying to get across. If it's so much that it makes you choke it might be more than you are trying to convey.

The sentence above has two adverbs, and both of them serve a useful purpose. So, it does happen.

 

[jomar]

Yeah, sounds like it's not a great match.

Wonder how the editors stuff sells.

I also wonder if genre makes a difference...for some reason, without looking or evidence or even caring, really, I could imagine adverbs being well received in bodice rippers.

 

[TxRad]

I also wonder if genre makes a difference...for some reason, without looking or evidence or even caring, really, I could imagine adverbs being well received in bodice rippers.

Adverbs work well in Young Adult novels also but you have to take care and use the right ones. Some grab attention and others make for "Duh" or "Huh?" moments.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Maybe it is redundant, but not everyone thinks the same way. It's an assumption that may not be logical. Shouting may not mean that anger was the emotion.

"Stay the hell away from my family!" he shouted jokingly.
"Stay the hell away from my family!" he shouted desperately.

In most cases, "angrily" or "desperately" would be implied by context, so they don't need the adverb.

If the tone is not what readers would expect from context, then that needs to be communicated. But even in that case, it's worth considering whether there are better ways to do that.

Most stories on this site, and I'd guess elsewhere, are written from a single perspective, or rotating single perspectives: first person, close third person, or *here be dragons* second person.

When writing in those modes, the information a reader gets should be consistent with the narrative perspective. Unless my POV character is telepathic, they can't directly perceive anybody else's thoughts or intents; they're limited to what they can see/hear/etc. and what they can deduce from that. When an author breaks those rules the perspective feels inconsistent.

Adverbs like "jokingly" risk breaking that rule. In a first-person story, if I write ' "..." Bob said jokingly ' then I've just given my narrator a peek inside Bob's head and that's jarring to the reader. (Or at least to this particular reader.)

A better approach would be to show how my POV character knows it's a joke. For instance:

"Stay away from my family!" Bob shouted. Then he winked at me. "Unless you're bringing beer."

"Stay away from my family!" Bob shouted. But he didn't go for his shotgun, so I knew he wasn't serious.

If you're writing in third-person omniscient, it's not such an issue, but most people aren't.

Maybe other verbs for shouting would remove the ambiguity, (barked, pleaded, ...). But to us they seem like syntactical sugar that assure the reader of what they thought.

Yeah, a lot of those verbs are doing the same work as an adverb and are subject to the same problems; my comments apply equally to those.

There will obviously be situations where an adverb is the right way to express the narrative, but those situations are rare, and can easily be avoided.

;-)

Some adverbs, certainly. But there are plenty of cases where adverbs do important work.

"The children had been playing quietly, until Uncle Roger gave them a drum."
"The stadium was dangerously overcrowded."
etc. etc.

You could rework those to give the same info without adverbs, but there's no reason to do so.

 

[rutger5]

They are often overused but they also do serve a purpose when used judiciously, I think. Since I tend to over explain things verbally then I tend to do so when writing also so it is something I need to watch out for.

But there is a problem with the mantra of say it a different way - don't use adverbs. If the goal is to eliminate unnecessary words and make writing more concise then saying She shouted, her voice choked with anger rather than She shouted angrily isn't accomplishing the goal of brevity.

There are times adverbs are warranted and I like them but I always hung out with the wrong crowd anyway and I don't know much.

 

[NotWise]

If the goal is to eliminate unnecessary words and make writing more concise then saying She shouted, her voice choked with anger rather than She shouted angrily isn't accomplishing the goal of brevity.

In that case my choice would "She shouted." If the context hasn't already established that she's angry then something else is wrong.

 

[lovecraft68]

My basic philosophy in life-not that I can live by it all the time-is everything in moderation. If adverbs were never needed they would have never been created I suppose, but they just have to be used sparingly(there's one!) and above all, they have to make sense

 

[Bramblethorn]

If adverbs were never needed they would have never been created I suppose, but they just have to be used sparingly(there's one!) and above all, they have to make sense

Often people don't even notice the useful adverbs. I count five adverbs in that one sentence, all important to the meaning, but four of them don't end in -ly so they're easy to miss.

 

[CarlusMagnus]

My basic philosophy in life-not that I can live by it all the time-is everything in moderation.

This works.

But only if you do it in moderation.