Dreg: Glory, Your Most Fresh-And-Cleanness. It's only a matter of time-- Glory: Ugh, everything always takes time! What about my time? Does anyone appreciate I'm on a schedule here?! Tick tock, Dreg! Tick freakin' tock!

'Sleeper'


The Great Write Way, Chapter Two: Twice upon a time...  

A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.


deborah grabien - Apr 27, 2005 10:56:27 am PDT #1429 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

I know that they're often used improperly by beginning writers, but the adverb nazis are like people who'd take the toepicks off Michelle Kwan's skates because beginning skaters are too prone to use them as brakes

HA! Yes, this. I've always tended toward the "I can't use adverbs? Um, bite me continuously, deeply, richly and terminally, yo" type of reply.


Connie Neil - Apr 27, 2005 11:02:25 am PDT #1430 of 10001
brillig

My sisters in adverbs! "I decided to come home early," he said could mean so many different things.


Topic!Cindy - Apr 27, 2005 11:02:45 am PDT #1431 of 10001
What is even happening?

Really.


deborah grabien - Apr 27, 2005 11:07:10 am PDT #1432 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

It's weird. I use a shitload of adverbs and the occasional meaty adjective, and yet, I have never once been told by an editor - and I've had some world-class, world-famous editors - to tone back any of them.

I wonder who came up with the "write like Hemingway, but without the poetry! Pretend you've got an iron rod up your ass!" motif? Screw whoever it was, anyway.

I use adverbs. I use adjectives. My seventh novel, all through bigass publishing houses, comes out in October. So, sucks-boo to the adverbsaries.

Or, alternately, pftlypftlypftly.


Susan W. - Apr 27, 2005 11:08:13 am PDT #1433 of 10001
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights

I've always tended toward the "I can't use adverbs? Um, bite me continuously, deeply, richly and terminally, yo" type of reply.

Bwah!

Thing is, I do overuse adverbs in my rough drafts. So I look at them closely when I'm editing, because I know some of them will be unnecessary. But if it's the best way I can think of to say what I'm trying to say, the adverb stays. Just as passive voice sometimes gets to stay, or any use of a form of "to be" when I'd have to jump through hoops and write something awkward rather than a nice straightforward "He was such-and-such."


Connie Neil - Apr 27, 2005 11:08:14 am PDT #1434 of 10001
brillig

So, sucks-boo to the adverbsaries.

Or, alternately, pftlypftlypftly.

But which one of those shows instead of tells?


deborah grabien - Apr 27, 2005 11:09:20 am PDT #1435 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

But which one of those shows instead of tells?

(looking innocent)

It's all in the POV perspective....


Scrappy - Apr 27, 2005 11:14:09 am PDT #1436 of 10001
Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

I think the rules are made for insecure, beginning writers.

Good writers don't need rules.

Bad writers like rules, but don't realize they can follow every single rule to the letter and they will still be bad.

Beginning writers trying to find a voice and figure out the limits of the form are the only ones who might benefit from rules, because they can maybe skip overblown crap they will only have to cut later. Trying to avoid adverbs, for example, might make them really look hard at how expressive their dialogue is.

Still, it's an awfully limited subset of writers who will find them at all helpful.


deborah grabien - Apr 27, 2005 11:21:29 am PDT #1437 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

Robin, that was a superb breakdown of it.

You (we, you, universal, us) have to take the personality and reality of the writer into consideration, as well; the surest way to get me to to flatly refuse to do something under any circs at all is to tell me it's written in stone.

Because I'll find a creative (edit: and usually infuriating) way to show that it isn't.


Connie Neil - Apr 27, 2005 11:23:48 am PDT #1438 of 10001
brillig

Good writers don't need rules.

I need this on a t-shirt