He said, controversially.

So, adverbs ending in ‘ly’.

I’m not a fiction writer but I know that they’re generally considered by good writers to be a good indicator of bad writers. In an interview with BBC Nottingham, David Mitchell, when asked to give some advice to young writers, quoted Stephen King saying “adverbs are not your friends”.

It’s not that they break any rules of English, rather that they can weaken sentences and are often used by writers as a cheap way of bringing emphasis and drama to a phrase in place of using a stronger and more illustrative noun.

William Zinsser in ‘On Writing Well’ explains it like so:

“Most adverbs are unnecessary. You will clutter your sentence and annoy the reader if you choose a verb that has a specific meaning and then add an adverb that carries the same meaning. Don’t tell us that the radio blared loudly – “blare” connotes loudness. Don’t write that someone clenched his teeth tightly – there’s no other way to clench teeth. Again and again in careless writing, strong verbs are weakened by redundant adverbs.

So are adjectives and other parts of speech: “effortlessly easy,” slightly Spartan,” “totally flabbergasted.” The beauty of “flabbergasted” is that it implies an astonishment that is total; I can’t picture someone being partly flabbergasted. If an action is so easy as to be effortless, use “effortless.” And what is “slightly Spartan”? Perhaps a monk’s cell with wall-to-wall carpeting? Don’t use adverbs unless they do necessary work. Spare us the news that the losing athlete moped sadly and the winner grinned widely.”

Gosh. Better crack open the ‘Edit-Find’ option in Word. This all came about, by the way, because I reviewed the PS2 game Odin Sphere last week (which will probably go up on Eurogamer in the next day or two). It’s a beautiful-looking game and, as with any exquisite 2D sprite based game, I noticed myself lapsing into ostentatious writing in the hope of recreating something of its visual brilliance in words.

Bad idea according to Al Rocheleau (whose first name and surname seem unequally-yoked) who takes a similar view on adverbs while also opening up the attack to Chewing Pixels’ most florid crutch, adjectives.

“Prose has a bit more time to hover, daydream, linger, mess around. Poetry does not. Since every word in a poem must be an essential one, be careful that you are not adding words that don’t really need to be there. This includes the words that modify nouns and verbs – the adjectives and adverbs. While these descriptive word-types can sometimes further color a noun or better define a verb, you’ll find as you continue building your craft as a poet that you will tend to use adjectives and, especially, adverbs much less.

So let’s look at a few lines and see how they might be condensed:

Dark and restless, sleepless nights
turn slowly to the respite of the dawn.

How about:

Wide-eyed nights plead
the dawn’s respite.”

Crikey. It’s off to writing summer camp for me next month. Still, ‘Wide-eyed nights’ etc are all very well for poets but what about humble/ irrelevant videogames reviewers? Take away all the adjectives and you’re left with a dry slice of IGN no? So I did what any sensible person would do in my situation and asked David McCarthy about ‘ly’ adverbs because, y’know, he came fifth in his year at Oxford and knows about this sort of stuff.

“I’m obviously not much of a grammarian,” he replied quickly, “because I see no reason to limit their use. I mean, sure, if you overuse any particular style or motif it can become habitual and lazy. But I think the chief objection to their use seems to be their potential for pleonasm, when writers use redundant adverbs before a word that doesn’t need qualifying.’

Back to overwrought sub-Alan Moore purple-y prose for me then.

Still, looking at this extract from J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets it’s clear that weak adverbs dilute prose and make it clunky and untidy. I can’t imagine how she manages to sleep at night. Well, other than by having a bed made of swans, unicorns and wads of fifty pound notes of course.

“Careful not to walk through anyone,” said Ron nervously, and they set off around the edge of the dance floor. They passed a group of gloomy nuns, a ragged man wearing chains, and the Fat Friar, a cheerful Hufflepuff ghost, who was talking to a knight with an arrow sticking out of his forehead. Harry wasn’t surprised to see that the Bloody Baron, a gaunt, staring Slytherin ghost covered in silver bloodstains, was being given a wide berth by the other ghosts.

“Oh, no,” said Hermione, stopping abruptly. “Turn back, turn back, I don’t want to talk to Moaning Myrtle -”

“Who?” said Harry as they backtracked quickly.