Part 5
Part 1
Gasp! Oh no. Dare come yet more writing advice burning adverbs at the stake? Vindictively, gleefully, manically dancing in the ashes?
No.
This is not about whether or not you should use them, but their frequency and obvious places to replace them. Most bad adverbs are the common ones that could be replaced by verbs we all know.
“She ran quickly” // “She sprinted”
“He said angrily” // “He snapped” “He chided” “He chastised”
vs.
“He ate voraciously”
“She swayed solemnly”
“She laughed sadly”
Bonus if you can add in some alliteration like ‘swayed solemnly’
If you can come up with an obvious verb to replace your verb + adverb combo, do so. If it would take more words or the closest applicable verb doesn’t hit the same vibe, then leave it. Adverbs should enhance the verb, not be redundant. Verbs shouldn’t be pretentious just to avoid them.
“She smiled happily” — most smiles are happy. Happily is redundant.
“He ran quickly” —a run is, by nature, quick
vs.
“She smiled sourly”
“He ran erratically”
Also!
The adverb need not always be after the verb.
“C accepted gladly” // “C gladly accepted”
But also
“Glad, C accepted”
“A shook their head resolutely” // “Resolute, A shook their head”
“The child skipped excitedly away.” // “Excited, the child skipped away.” // “The child skipped away, excited.”
English is flexible like that.
Which is what I mean with managing your adverb frequency. As most end in the -ly, too many in succession, on top of the repeat syntax of Subject - Verb - Adverb looks boring and dull (and so does beginning every sentence with the subject). It helps with your cadence and flow if you don’t have entire paragraphs at a time all starting with “He [verb]” or “She [verb]” or “They [verb].” We don't speak like this in natural conversation.
But at the end of the day, there are some juicy adverbs that have no equal without busting out the thesaurus for some obscure lexical nugget that no one would understand anyway.
interesting
remembered how library of alexandria part 2 happened when cs pacat removed all the really good writing advice from their website blog…it was so good for people who are 1 on the apple imagination scale…
How it feels when I finally verify my email, so I can now message people back on tumblr, but now I have to participate in communication and socialisation:
You're walking around on Sunday the 7th cuz that's when ur uncle's boyfriend got hit by a runaway jet ski or whatever, when you some weird kid with even weirder just chilling outside his house.
Little do you f*cking know, he's an echolocating rager who will not let you anywhere near his family, and you are about the experience what all your victims have felt, only a lot less humiliating.
Me: Listen, we don't believe in Wicca stuff
My brain: Yup
Me: We aren't spiritual in any way, and don't believe in superstition
My brain: Correct
Me: And we only bought that book on magic for reference when writing
My brain: That was our intention
Me: ...so why do we want to try Wicca magic?
My brain: Just shut up and build the altar
Why hello there, fellow fixation=obscurity of fandom-er
Why can’t I hyper fixate on, like, the MCU or HP or something with a huge fandom. No! Instead my brains like “Yano these books/movies with little to no fandom? Yea that’s the stuff.”
Hello Gregor The Overlander and Michael Vey fandoms. How are you today? And an honorable mention to the nonexistent Dull Boy (book) fandom. I wish you existed.
I mean, obviously I draw for WOF but that’s just for art, i like dragons and designing, I don’t really care much for the story. And then BMC but I wouldn’t say the fandoms small just not quite the MCU or Harry Potter.
Percy: Yeah, I'm arguably one of, if not THE, strongest demigo-
Some random fucking Hermes kid from 2,000 years ago:
This series is canon, as far as I'm concerned
Something I decided to cook up to celebrate the completion of the AHS 1 edit (YES THE FIRST BOOK HAS BEEN OVERHAULED AND IT'S SO MUCH BETTER NOW GO REREAD IF YOU LIKED IT PLEASE!! I PROMISE IT'S WORTH IT!)
Ripred & Henry are one of my favorite dynamics to write in AHS 3 and I adore how far they've come and where they started.
That and Henry in general. This is your AHS 1 vs AHS 3 Henry comparison as well (yes, ALL the text here are actual quotes from the books.)
Honestly, Ripred should start to consider paying rent with how much he and his words of harsh but wise truth live in Henry's head 🤣
also I wrote my first fic in two years last night :) small potatoes, definition of a gluxa trash one-shot but I hope you enjoy and it felt really good to stretch my muscles, so to speak!