How often do you use adverbs in your writing? Words like quickly, shortly or always are among the most popular adverbs used in day-to-day writing and conversation – providing a quick and handy way to augment our verbs. While adverbs are indeed efficient at telling, they are awful at showing – an important skill that any seasoned storyteller must possess. Why are adverbs seen as metaphorical junk food in storytelling? Read on…
The trap of convenience
When things are convenient, we become more liberal with their usage. Much like reheating an insipid frozen dinner instead of cooking a real meal at home, adverbs are the lazy person’s choice. Cheap burgers are good at filling you up, but they sacrifice flavour and nutrition for price and convenience – or in the case of storytelling, you are trading the story’s quality and detail for speed. Let’s use an example to demonstrate why.
“Steve and Dave ran quickly to catch their bus.”
This is a fine sentence for basic conversations, but in a narrative sense, it forces the reader to imagine how fast Steve and Dave had to run. Perhaps the pair had to dodge and shove aside people to make the bus, or perhaps they casually sprinted ten steps… in other words, the characters’ actions are up for interpretation. Making readers guess what happens doesn’t lead to a very convincing story – especially if they imagine something different from what the writer intended.
Does this mean that we should avoid adverbs altogether? Of course not! Adverbs are still exceptionally handy for when you need to describe an inconsequential scene in as few words as possible. Whether something is important or not boils down to the writer’s narrative flow – reusing Steve and Dave, them catching the bus might simply be a way to progress the story towards something more interesting. For example, the pair are scheduled to give a big presentation to the boss later in the day – an event that places their careers on the line. In such a case, “running quickly to catch the bus” is essentially a more action-oriented way to write “head to the office to work”.
Let’s say Steve’s and Dave’s epic sprint was a legitimate action sequence that needed further illustration. For writers who’ve gotten too used to having budget burgers and fries all the time, putting aside their favourite adverbs won’t be easy. How can we describe a story more flavourfully while keeping things simple?
Filling in the adverb gap
The easiest way to replace adverbs is to use a stronger verb. In the example above, run is a rather bland and uninspiring verb. Perhaps we can use a more precise replacement
Original: “Steve and Dave ran quickly to catch their bus.”
New: “Steve and Dave bolted down the street to catch their bus.”
or
“Steve and Dave strode after the departing bus.”
To bolt is to make a sudden dash for something, whereas to stride is to move with long steps. Words like bolt, barrel or scurry are great alternatives to generic verbs because they grant a better sense of urgency. Stride, on the other hand, is a fantastic verb if Steve and Dave are tall people – meaning that their steps would be larger and wider than the average Joe, as well as being a verb tailored to their characteristics. If you aren’t sure whether a verb is used in the correct context, it’s the perfect time to dust off your thesaurus!
Aside from verb changes, literary devices are also nifty tools that can pack more a substantial storytelling punch – in particular, figures of speech like similes and metaphors are great at showing a more visually stimulating scene. Let’s combine the use of a more precise verb with a simile or metaphor to see how we could improve the existing sentence:
Original: “Steve and Dave ran quickly to catch their bus.”
Simile: “Steve and Dave made a beeline for the departing bus like a cheetah after its prey.”
Metaphor: “Steve and Dave tore up the pavement chasing after the bus.”
Figures of speech create a more exciting scene, do they not? As an added bonus, they can be further tweaked to match the mood of your story. To inject a bit of cheeky humour, you could write:
Simile: “Steve and Dave raced after the bus as if they had fires in their tighty-whities.”
Or, if you were writing something more serious, this might be fitting:
Metaphor: “Steve and Dave were walking a tightrope with their careers if they missed that bus.”
From a quick verb swap to the more elegant use of figures of speech, these are but some of the ways that you can tell a story more powerfully – without relying on weak adverbs or going into absurd amounts of detail. Don’t get us wrong, we love to read explicit writing, but when every sentence is written like a George R.R. Martin novel, it can become cumbersome and exhausting to read after a while. So, what are you waiting for? Put down those fatty adverbs and start writing healthier stories!