Why Limit Adverbs?

An adverb is a word that modifies a verb, adjective, or another adverb. It tells how, when, where, or to what degree.

This is an important writing tip.

I've been revising my NaNoWriMo (November 2011) novel this month. I've added scenes, changed things, and made the novel better, way better, than it's first draft. All in preparation for my five free paperback novels.

Everyone knows about the adverb "suddenly." Well, I did a global search in my novel for "suddenly," and I found 28 results. Yes, 28 "suddenly" adverbs in my novel. And so I looked up each one and either deleted it or changed it to something else. Overall, I only kept 2 of them.

Including too many adverbs in your writing is one way to make your writing bad writing. I don't mean to be harsh to those who regularly use adverbs, but you'll want to use these sparingly (especially adverbs of degree). Too many adverbs can add useless words that are unnecessary.

For example: "He ran very fast toward the object."

Let's take all the adverbs out. What is the use of "very fast" in this sentence? "Very fast" tells how he ran to show the reader that he was running fast, but is unnecessary because you can change "ran very fast" to "charged," "sprinted," "darted," or another verb like that.

Another example: "In a very kind way, the woman gave her son the apples."

Now, really, do we need the adverb (prepositional) phrase? We can make a single adverb out of this adverb phrase.


Think, think, think, think, think think, think, think...


"The woman kindly gave her son the apples."

Have any questions?