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.
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."
So, sucks-boo to the adverbsaries.
Or, alternately, pftlypftlypftly.
But which one of those shows instead of tells?
But which one of those shows instead of tells?
(looking innocent)
It's all in the POV perspective....
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.
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.
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.
Unfortunately, it's those beginners who take the rules as absolutes rather than the guidelines they are. Though I guess that's not really
my
problem except when I draw an absolutist contest judge.
Really
rethinking this whole contest thing. Only if I final in one of the other two I've entered and get a request for a full from the editor judging the final round, watch me change my tune in a hurry.....
"Badges...we don't need no stinking badges."
Can you believe I gave in to the desparation of being able to finish a stupid story in Word and went out and bought a new computer? Yeah. Wow. But, it's pretty loaded for a laptop, so I'm happy.
