You know what adverbs are right? They are those pretty
little descriptive words that modifies an adjective, verb or word group. If you’ve forgotten what they are let me help you.
Jason spied the “No Trespassing” sign warily.
How did he spy it? He spied it warily. Warily being the adverb in question. Now try this one…
The disgustingly obese writer ordered everything on the menu.
How would you describe the writer’s obesity? Yep… disgustingly obese. It’s all coming back to you right? All of those hours sitting in Mrs. McGill’s english class are paying off right now aren’t the? The funny thing is that some writers love adverbs. So much so that they overdue it. In an attempt to spruce up what they see as otherwise lame prose they pepper it with adverbs. Too much pepper ruins the palate.
Let’s look at a couple more.
Running down the crazily crooked hallway, Ben wordlessly wished for help to arrive.
Hmmmm. What do we have here? We have poor Ben running down an unusual hallway. He’s obviously concerned about something that he’s either running to or running from. So what’s wrong with the senetence? Nothing actually. It’s grammatically correct. But does it feel right? Say it out loud. Something’s amiss right?
Too much pepper. Let’s start over.
Running down the crooked hallway, Ben wished for help to arrive.
What do you think? Better? We have the same sentence with the crooked hallway. It sounds stronger doesn’t it? We don’t really need to know that the hallway is crazily crooked. Crooked is more than enough. And if someone is running they are probably not wishing out loud. Wordlessly is superfluous.
Let’s revisit the first two sentences.
Jason spied the “No Trespassing” sign.
The obese writer ordered everything on the menu.
Gone are the unnecessary words warily and disgustingly.
So how does one avoid this common mistake of giving the pepper shaker one too many shakes? You write. Write to your heart’s content and don’t worry too much about it. That’s what editing is all about. You can do something a chef can’t. You can remove the pepper to make your masterpiece more palatable. Over time and with practice you’ll know how many shakes of the peppermill are required and you’ll be a much happier writer because of it. Pepper isn’t bad. In fact it can enhance a stale dish. But too much only hides what might otherwise be perfection.
{ 1 comment }
This reminds me of a great article by Drew McLellan that said: “The more important your message, the less you should say”.
This approach lets your audience focus on the core of your message and doesn’t distract them from your goal: persuade them with your message!
Take Nike great costumer slogan as an example: “Just Do It”.
It takes 3 words to describe why customers should buy from Nike.
Great post!
Comments on this entry are closed.