The Danger of Adverbs

You’ve gotta be a writer if you’d be willing to read a posts about adverbs. I tried to stir up a little drama by calling them dangerous but even I don’t think it umps the interest all that much.

What is an adverb?

Somewhere along the line, English teachers quit teaching grammar. I don’t know if they decided to release time for Higher Things or they got bored doing it. And grammar is kind of boring. Possibly, you can make the argument that readers don’t need grammar but writers need to know a bit.

So, for those of you who had progressive English teachers, an adverb often ends in ‘ly’ and typically describes how an action is done. ‘He said it tauntingly.’ ‘She moved slowly.’ ‘He grinned weakly.’

Here’s a paragraph with adverbs.

She looked at him scornfully. “You really expect me to believe that?”

“It’s true!” he said defensively.

“No way you were there,” she said emphatically.

“I was so!” he said angrily.

Not deathless prose but other than that, what’s so bad about using adverbs?

Adverbs are short-hand and second-hand emotion

First of all, you might not have needed any of the adverbs above. Read it again without them.

She looked at him. “You really expect me to believe that?”

“It’s true!” he said.

“No way you were there.”

“I was so!”

Don’t you think the dialogue gets across all the emotions used in the adverbs? I certainly get the anger, defensiveness and scorn. Sometimes you don’t need them because what you wrote already makes it clear. And doesn’t the scene move faster without them (added bonus—you can drop a couple of ‘said’s)?

But secondly, and more importantly, adverbs can be an emotional short-hand. Instead of showing the protagonist being angry (e.g. shouting, throwing something, talking through gritted teeth) you just assure the reader that he is by using ‘angrily.’ This doesn’t allow the reader to judge for himself and can also diminish the force of the emotion by encapsulating it in one word.

When it is okay to use adverbs?

Having said that, adverbs can be appropriate. If the scene or character is incidental to the plot, it may not be worth dramatizing every emotion and that’s where an adverb like ‘angrily’ can be used effectively. In fact, dramatizing every emotion of every character can clog up the story with unneeded and therefore boring explorations into psyches we fundamentally are not meant to care all that much about.

But when the character and/or the plot point is important, take the time to show the emotion. In fact, I think the pinnacle of writing about emotion is when you show it so well that you don’t have to name it. The character can hang her head, be silent, cry, and her shoulders can droop. You can convey sadness without having to have either you or the character name it. But the reader gets it. Much more effective dramatically.

So, adverbs are okay but beware of making them your default position. Slow yourself down enough to identify when you are dealing with an important emotional moment in your story and show it to your readers.

July 8, 2022July 8, 2022

Showing Show and Tell

In another post on The Life of Pi, I discussed how the director of that movie gave us a powerful example of the power of show. Let’s look at the uses and effects of ‘show’ and ‘tell.’

‘Tell’ has its uses

Say you are inclined to write something like this:

He listened intently to the orders. He felt his throat tighten at the thought of what Serena told him to do. It was immoral and probably illegal. But he didn’t feel as if he had a choice. He felt as if the walls were closing in.

So, gets across the point that he (let’s call him Matthew) is very unhappy. Efficient way to do it. ‘Tell’ is useful if you need to establish some not very important point in the narrative but which the reader must nevertheless know. But this scene doesn’t seem to be one of these.

The power of show

Let’s rewrite the passage using more ‘show.’

“I can’t do that!” Matthew protested. “Come on, Serena, that’s practically, practically…”

“What, Matthew?” Serena turned the corners of her mouth up but her eyes didn’t change. “Illegal, immoral, unethical, all of the above?”

“I can’t, Serena, I just can’t.” He felt as if the walls were closing in on him.

Serena flipped away his protest. “And yet, you don’t really have a choice, do you?”

See, ‘show’ gives you a much better idea of who the characters are and how they interact. ‘Tell’ is like a semi-transparent screen you put in front of an action you’re observing. You can see but it’s not sharp and clear. ‘Show’ is the screen removed, where you are directly observing what’s going on. And with ‘show,’ the reader can come to his own conclusions about the characters rather than the writer telling how to feel about them.

This distinction is as important in a memoir as it is in fiction. You don’t want to tell your readers what happened; you want them to experience it—‘show’ territory.

Doesn’t ‘show’ take longer?

Yes, it often takes more words for ‘show’ than ‘tell.’ So what? Effectiveness, not efficiency, is what we are after here. The objective for the reader is to live your story not get to its end in record time.

When you want to focus the reader’s attention on particular aspects of the character’s life, these are good candidates for ‘show.’ When you want to glide over some things because they’re not germane to your main point but need to be there for the narrative to hang together, ‘tell’ might be useful.

A rule of thumb: If the point you want to establish is important (Sheila really does hate her brother; Matthew is a wimp; Serena has issues), dramatizing it by using ‘show’ is probably a good bet.

March 18, 2022March 18, 2022

How Much Detail?

So, we all know the adage of show not tell. In the preponderance of scenes, showing the protagonist yelling, “Damn right, I’m mad!” is more effective than writing “Sarah was angry.”

To show effectively, you need to be specific in the details of the scene.

Be specific

Not just: Samantha was suddenly alarmed as both men looked like they were about to fight.

But: The two circled each other. Adam raised a clenched fist and suddenly, Brian swung one up, too. “This is crazy!” yelled Samantha. “You think you’re gonna duke it out?”

How much detail is enough?

As I have already discussed in Description Gone Wild, doing static descriptions of the room, the weather, the characters, etc. need to be used carefully to avoid losing the reader’s interest in the plot. But writers also get caught in how much detail to include as part of the story. Let me give you an example.

Larry examined the lightbulb, shaking it, but there was no tell tale rattle of a broken filament. He craned his neck up to the socket and brushed away a possibly imaginary bit of cobweb. “This has been out of commission for a long time,” he thought. He looked around for the switch. It was way over on the other side of the room, at the base of the stairs. But he could see that the toggle was down. He cupped the bulb and fit it into the socket. Then he began to turn.

Now, under what circumstance could this turgid piece of prose be considered worthwhile including in the story and, more importantly, interesting to the reader?

The automatic answer might be ‘none,’ but there is at least one situation when it might be appropriate. If a bomb is about to go off when the bulb and socket connect, the extreme detail could add suspense. But this is the important bit: the reader must know it’s going to happen.

If she does, then the detail increases tension. If she doesn’t, then all the detail is a nuisance to get through. Even if the bomb goes off at exactly the same spot in the story in both instances.

And if there is no bomb or other significant event attached to the lightbulb, when could it be used?

Answer: Never.

Okay, if changing the lightbulb might be needed for verisimilitude, you could go with:

At the bottom of the stairs, Larry flipped the switch. Nothing. He sighed and headed over to the socket.

And even this little bit isn’t needed if being in the dark has no other function—such as metaphor or foreshadowing.

Don’t fall in love with your writing

Sometimes, when the Muse is with you, your fingers fly over the keyboard and everything which emerges feels like gold. The moments we all live for.

However, in the cold light of day (i.e. editing), it’s not to say that every word created during that glow is still gold. What probably can be retained is the energy of the piece. But be on the look-out for bits that are surplus to requirements.

In short, detail, like description, needs always to be in the service of the story. Even a lovely and evocative element which you would hate to lose must be put under the plot microscope. If it isn’t doing something—even in a minor way—to create the story you want, then consider the chop.

November 26, 2021September 19, 2021

Using Your History can Hurt Your Writing

This post is proof that I can argue from both sides of my mouth. Or, more kindly, I can see both sides of the argument. In the last post, I discussed how to use your own life history to enrich a fictional piece. And generally, I think it’s a good idea. But sometimes it can backfire. Especially if the scene morphs into more auto-biography than originally intended. Then it can cause problems.

You avoid crucial scenes

One way to avoid the dangerous bits of personal history is to skim over or leave them out.

One writer was telling the story of a foster child whose foster parents wanted to adopt her. However, at the time, and in that locale, the birth mother had to give her permission. The ‘I’ character had to talk to her mother for the first time in years. This is my re-creation of how she handled the scene.

I stood at the door, knowing my mother was already inside. I couldn’t bring myself to grab the handle. What if she says no? What if she wants me back? My stomach churned. But I took a deep breath and pulled the door open.

When I came out of the room, I closed the door gently behind me. The tears I had been able to hold in now flooded my eyes so I could barely see. Thank god! Thank god!

So, here, the writer has avoided the uncomfortable bits by almost literally closing the door on us. Something happens in that room which turns out well but we are just told about it, rather than shown the scene between the mother and the ‘I’ character.

In this way, you protect yourself against having to possibly relive painful feelings but rob the reader of what is compelling in your story.

Your writing goes flat

Another way writers sometimes try to avoid raw feelings is to write the scene, say the one between the birth mother and the ‘I’ character, but make quite clinical or fact based. I’ll give a try at showing this.

My mother didn’t look that different from what I remembered. Smaller but that was probably me.

She kissed me lightly on the cheek. “My, how you’ve grown.”

We sat down at the table. I began. “I want to be adopted by the Warnsleys. But I have to get your permission.”

My mother paused for a moment and then said, “Well, I guess that would be for the best.”

“Well, thanks.”

Honestly, do you buy this? I don’t. We know the ‘I’ character was afraid the mother will say no, so how come no reaction from her when she says yes? In addition, this is presumably a big thing for the mother—how come she acquiesces so easily? Wouldn’t she try to justify why she had to put the ‘I’ character into foster care or regret losing whatever tenuous relationship she has now with her daughter?

In short, I think the writer is primarily concerned with protecting herself from old feelings but in the process, has produced flat writing.

I know it’s hard, but to truly write well, you have to risk appearing naked on the page. If you cover yourself up carefully, even in fiction, the reader won’t see a real person or a compelling story. And isn’t that what you are aiming for?

October 15, 2021September 17, 2021

Writing about Therapy Sessions

What can I say? Writers, while not necessarily crazy (sorry, with mental health issues), nonetheless seem to be not infrequent users of therapy in various forms. And there is the whole write-what-you-know thing. So, sooner or later, we try to depict a therapy session.

And it almost always falls flat.

Not because you are a crummy writer but because of the nature of therapy. As those of us who have addressed our problems this way know, it is iterative, repetitive and slow process which takes a long time to get results. All things anathema to story.

So, if you try to truly reflect conversation in a session, you’re likely to get a boring, going nowhere mess which contributes little to the story.

How about speeding things up?

One option is, of course, to telescope the process in the novel. This compression in other areas is often quite justifiable to maintain the momentum of the story. So, the main character is completely open to all the suggestions made by the counsellor, integrates the learning with lightning speed, and is back on the right track in no time. She goes from mistrusting the world to complete and utter belief in the innate goodness of humanity.

First of all, sucky tale. You’ve removed all the struggles and conflict that makes a narrative hum. But more importantly for our purposes, completely unrealistic. Because we know in our own lives, with or without guidance, change doesn’t happen that way. Change is iterative, repetitive and slow.

How to avoid writing therapist scenes

Despite this, the insights that come with therapy may be pivotal to your plot. So how do you write about it without writing about it?

First, you probably need a scene establishing that your protagonist is seeing a therapist. But it might be the first session, where the main character illustrates the real reason she is embarking on this process. She thinks it’s because her family is so difficult but her defensiveness and the sharp tongued way she communicates cues the reader that there are other issues. Tricky to write, but if done well, it provides the reader with important information early on.

From there forward, the therapist might not figure prominently at all. But the main character might recall something learned in therapy which she applies to the present point in the plot. You might even be able to get away with a short—very short—scene where the protagonist comes to a significant revelation which we then see her applying it to refocusing her actions and life.

So you might be able to get the juice out of these sessions without having to do all the peeling, pitting, and dissecting which actually occurs.

If you must write about therapy

It is possible that your plot is integrally tied to depicting therapy sessions.

The only thing I have ever seen which did this effectively was an originally Israeli series, adapted to North American audience called In Treatment. In it, a therapist treated four different patients. And it works. Even though the whole series takes place inside the therapist’s office and the patients are just basically telling the therapist their stories.

So, if you must, you would do well to study why this tell-not-show approach works. If it’s the acting or direction, then you’re sunk. If it is the extremely clever writing (and I suspect it is), study how the writers made it work. Unless of course, it’s just bloody magic.