Unsurprisingly, I don't agree with this. I feel it's more of a guideline than a rule.

Nor do I. Stark spare minimalistic prose construction has its place, of course, but it's generally not on my shelf.

Strangely, I don't feel Strunk and White are the final arbitrators of literary style, especially not for fiction.

That's putting it mildly. I agree, of course.

It's helpful to keep in mind that a lot of writing advice is designed with the lowest common denominator in mind. Like, "CAUTION: Coffee will be very hot." If you have a decent command of the language, and a unique and confident voice, you can break most rules and make it work.

But that's not true for a hell of a lot of writers out there, who could definitely benefit from a few less adverbs (and adjectives, and instances of passive construction, and tense shifts ...).

But that's not true for a hell of a lot of writers out there, who could definitely benefit from a few less adverbs (and adjectives, and instances of passive construction, and tense shifts ...).

t cough J.K. Rowling

She does love her adverbs and adjectives, I know. I found it to be part of her style, though, because she was fairly consistent with, um, overuse, so the rhythm of the narrative was pretty steady.

That might make sense only in my head, though.

It does give her books (or the Harry Potter series anyway) a certain flavor and color, too.

Stephen King - who is a fan of JKR - specifically called her out on her adverb abuse, especially things like: "Ha, Ha!" she cried triumphantly.

Like I said, she does probably use too many. I just don't care, because the books were incredibly readable to me.

I think she listened to him, though, as it was noticeably less in the last book.

Part of my course has been helping kids identify "works of literary merit" and defining what that means. One of our ongoing discussions is around the idea that one trait of literary merit is playing with language (which Rowling does, but it's mostly in the naming of things, like Spell-o-tape etc).

I think they have decided that, generally speaking, books that are primarily plot-driven are wonderful but mostly don't qualify as having "literary merit." It's been interesting to see them reach that conclusion because most of them found it when trying to identify the differences between Jane Eyre, Picture of Dorian Gray and The Strange Tale of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Rowling is plot so her adverbial tendencies don't really slow that down.

Adverbs should be used........sparingly.

You probably eat dry toast, too.

I thought today's writers were less slavishly devoted to Strunk and White? Haven't they sort of receded into the landscape of pretty opinionated grammar dominatri...what the hell is a gender neutral term for what I'm looking for, fuck?

I mean, I didn't think they were regarded as singularly right anymore...not hugely more right than many other voices (some of whom don't have a hate on for the adverb, for instance, to the same degree).