The Siege of Adverb

I have a problem with adverbs. You know, that part of speech that ends with ly and can modify a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Readers who looked at my manuscript commented on my use of adverbs and advised: “Get rid of them.” But, wait a minute, all of them? There isn’t one single adverb that can stay? Are they all so singularly, vehemently, and disgracefully bad? There’s none among them that usefully earns its keep or helpfully, gratefully and profitably provides my words with extra meaning?

Writers today are anti-adverb. Stephen King writes in his book On Writing: “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” Mark Twain called adverbs a plague and said, “They confuse me. They mean absolutely nothing to me.” Though Twain did use absolutely to describe his feelings against adverbs and King used usually twice and seriously once in the first paragraph describing the overuse of adverbs, the current sentiment is clear (and I’m quoting King again): “Adverbs are not your friends.”

Is the dislike for adverbs a new fashion? As an experiment, I picked out three books from my shelves. I chose Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, an eighteenth century gothic novel that was a must-read in its time and is quoted or mentioned in many later novels, Henry James’ classic The Portrait of a Lady, and C.S. Lewis The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” I opened each book at random and looked for adverbs. Radcliffe, in a dramatic paragraph that has Montoni attacking Emily as she attempts to come to her aunt’s aid, did not use a single adverb. James, in a long-winded two-page monologue, wrote the adverbs really, horribly, fortunately (3 times), certainly, absolutely, exceedingly, parenthetically and definitely. Lewis, in a paragraph describing Edmund’s first interactions with the witch, employed no adverbs.

Of course, to make my experiment more accurate, I could have chosen three novels of the same genre and perhaps compared American novelists to their counterparts in other nations to see the global changes in the use of adverbs over the last three centuries. A different nineteenth century writer could also have given a different result, because Henry James, interestingly enough, is known as having expressed great love for adverbs: “I adore adverbs; they are the only qualifications I really much respect.” But I am not writing a doctorate, and that’s the only experiment I’m going to conduct today.

I wonder if, in the world of words, adverbs are trembling with fear. Will they be banned from dictionaries? In one hundred years, will they find themselves mentioned only in history of linguistics books, sitting covered with cobwebs in a dusty, dark corner, like old no-longer useful relatives of other words? The English language is a living, breathing entity which changes all the time. Its dynamic nature is why I love it so much. But still, I hope the current scorn of adverbs will not last. I happen to like adverbs very much.

Small Surprises

While I was busy torturing myself for not writing as much as I had before traveling to Israel, the universe had other plans in mind for me. Yesterday, after a couple months spent sending queries to agents, I suddenly and without warning received my first full manuscript request. An agent, for the first time, wanted to see my entire novel.

I’m taking a break to dance a little victory dance. Very little, because this is just one small step, and there is no guarantee that I won’t end up back on square one.

But still, I feel like this is a big deal. An agent wants to read my entire novel! She liked the query and first two chapters enough to want to read more.

But I also want to keep my perspective, because I’ve been disappointed before, and I know myself already: I take rejection hard. What am I saying? I take praise hard too. A no-win situation. You tell me my writing’s good, I get depressed thinking I won’t ever be able to duplicate it. You tell me my writing’s bad, I get depressed about that too, because you really didn’t need to confirm what I already knew.

But this time, I’m going to be nice to myself. I’ve decided to take a new road. Remember my holes in the road blog? I’m going to be happy and hopeful. I’m going to imagine the best outcome: The agent’s going to love the novel and want to represent me, and she’ll give me fantastic ideas for revisions which are going to make me feel like I’m seeing the novel through new eyes. But just in case she decides she is not interested, I also have a plan. I’m going to allow myself to feel sad, but I’m not going to take any step back (and definitely not the ten steps back which I used to take, with my hand clutching dramatically at my heart). Because a full manuscript request is a huge small step. And I’m going to take this full request as an encouragement. I already have some ideas for revision, and I know how to move ahead.

Small step forward. Keeping my eyes focused on my page.

Most important, I am writing. I want to keep going with this fun romance novel I started (did you know the second most popular occupation for a romance hero is cowboy?). I want to get back to all the other ideas which have been born in my mind in all the years since I realized that writing is the only thing I want to do. Because, remember when I told you (and myself) that I’m a novelist? Well, it’s true!

In conclusion, I'd just like to say that all this came about by the help and energy of Dennis, our dog walker, who likes my three dogs so much that he recommended me to the notice of his friend, the literary agent. Thank you Dennis! I always knew there was a reason I kept those dogs around.