Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A Common mistakes made by first time fantasy novelists?

Advice about adverbs is complex. I will try to explain simply. Adverbs make writing more vibrant and interesting – sometimes. The 'sometimes' comes from the type of adverb. There are different ty...

posted 7y ago by S. Mitchell‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T07:01:00Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30262
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar S. Mitchell‭ · 2019-12-08T07:01:00Z (almost 5 years ago)
Advice about adverbs is complex. I will try to explain simply.

Adverbs make writing more vibrant and interesting – sometimes. The 'sometimes' comes from the type of adverb.

There are different types of adverbs. The basic categories are those that modify:

1. verbs e.g. He ran **slowly**.

2. adjectives e.g. She was **very** small.

3. other adverbs e.g. He ran **extremely** slowly.

4. whole sentences/clauses e.g. **Yesterday** , we ate pizza.

It is the first type, those that change verbs, which we need to think about more. Consider these pairs of sentences:

        She spoke quietly.
        She whispered.
    
        He talked loudly.
        He shouted.
    
        The man walked slowly along the path.
        The man shuffled along the path.

I hope that you will agree that for most purposes the second one is better. Of course, no writing rule is ever absolute, but replacing ‘ly’ adverbs with strong verbs is a good idea.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2017-09-18T09:18:53Z (about 7 years ago)
Original score: 5