Excerpt from “Follow These Rules for Stronger Writing”, found in the March/April issue of Writer’s Digest, and also available on their website:

6. REPLACE ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS WITH VIVID NOUNS AND ACTIVE VERBS. Cultivate the use of strong verbs and concrete nouns. They are the most powerful tools in a writer’s arsenal. Instead of:

Since the day Barbara met the werewolf, she felt very scared and frightened.

Write:

Since the day she met the werewolf, terror haunted Barbara’s heart.

There is no surer way to weaken your prose than to pepper it with adverbs. There are, of course, times when the adverb is appropriate and necessary. Choose those times carefully.

She looked longingly and lovingly at the chocolate.

Or:

She looked at the chocolate with longing and love.

Or better:

Her eyes consumed the chocolate.

Argh. This is so, so difficult to do when you’re not used to it… and thinking about it while you’re writing a first draft can drive you absolutely batty if you’re just in the stage of getting words down on paper. Yet, it’s an incredibly useful skill to use. In his monograph On Writing, Stephen King also says something to the effect of “never use descriptive adverbs unless someone is holding a gun to your head” (or at least that’s what I got out of it). From that day forward, I’ve been more aware when I write one down, but I don’t always do what I should to change it. This means that revising Draft #1 of my WIP is going to be a complete nightmare.

Of course, I already knew that…

Tags: grammar, Stephen King, writing