Adverbs and Telling.

[barrett1987]

I've read a lot of 90's fantasy and the one running theme i see in them is that adverbs and telling are used a lot. The shift away from these two things has to be a recent event. So what caused it?

Terry GoodKind Wizard's First Rule is a telling extreme. Stephen King uses adverbs in his first dark tower book way too much.


to quote a post from another board:

I have been taught against them, and the reasoning is that the verb can be better. I've accepted it. But I've always wondered why they are so awful? They have flourish, they explain, the picture becomes more clrar with them. Why -are- adverbs hated? I mean, as long as your manuscript is frought with "LY", which does get tedious, who made these rules? And, moreso, why?

So in summary, why are they bad? When did this anti adverb movement begin? Telling - When can it be used? Only when showing would be too long?

David Gemmell wrote the very enjoyable Rigante 4 series. But boy does he tell alot.

So, was the 90's just poor writing or have we just evolved?

 

[alchemist]

I think a well chosen verb is more elegant than an adverb, and more economical e.g. He walked slowly around the town vs. He strolled around the town. That said, I can often live with adverbs as long as they don't draw attention to themselves e.g. "Oh, really?" he said facetiously.

As for telling, I wasn't aware of the concept until I came here, then I had a name for something which had annoyed me about certain books in the past. Again, I can live with a little, but showing usually illustrates a concept or character trait much more powerfully (oh look, an adverb!)

So in answer to your question, preferences and styles have evolved, but there's always room for difference.

 

[Colbey Frost]

Telling and adverbs are easy. I guess publishers and agents are looking for that next level. I have experience in tattooing, so let me put it this way - A normal tattooist (someone telling and using adverbs) will use an outline that is put on the skin (carbon lines they use to follow) he will knock out hundreds of the same tattoo. Easy. If you take away the outline so he has to do it freehand by just looking at the picture, you will see something different. His artistic flair will come through. Get it?

 

[Brian G Turner]

Adverbs are fine. It's over use that becomes a problem.

Or, in other words:

Adverbs are definitely fine. It's really over use that usually becomes generally a problem.

As for show vs telling - so far I understand it's about balance: showing the most important stuff, and telling the lesser details we don't need to dwell on.

Terry Goodkind does an awful lot of showing. Every second page seems to show how Richard's body reacts, to show fear and anxiety.

And David Gemmell is a master of understatement when it comes to showing.

 

[barrett1987]

Haha, its mad that we can read the same book (First rule) within a few weeks of each other and come away with such different views. I thought the writing was really bad but that i enjoyed the characters and the story. You (from what i gathered) found the opposite.

 

[IsoldeJ]

It's OK to pepper your MS with an occasional adverb, but not overuse them, and once you get into the habit of searching for something better, then your writing is the better for it.

Show/Tell...? That old chestnut. Well, exposition is fine, and it has its place, but too much can, frankly, bore the damn pants off you. If your prose contains swaths of infodump/description/pointless meandering, then edit it out. I would say, if you absolutely love what you've written then be very careful, because often our little darlings are the things we should cut, as it makes readers reach for eye bleach.

 

[barrett1987]

I would say, if you absolutely love what you've written then be very careful, because often our little darlings are the things we should cut, as it makes readers reach for eye bleach.

I hear that! Been working with 4 other beta readers and there was one phrase i thought was great but they all have flagged it. So snip snip it goes

 

[Jo Zebedee]

But remember, sometimes we need to tell. A reader needs enough understanding of the world to get absorbed in it, and whilst you can show some, it might be necceessary to tell other bits. But you can be smart about how to tell -- a deep character scene can help, dialogue can break it up (but avoid the "you know, Dave"... type), a brief 50 word tell in a 500 word show-scene can easily be forgiven.

Anyway, I use adverbs. Most writers I know do. But only where they add. If you want a good example of not using them, Mouse had an entry in the 300 challenges -- I think it was last July, but have a scroll down the 300 Roll of honour for the one with the picture of the boat -- which didn't have any adverbs, I think, and which was wonderfully active because of it.

Edit -- it was January 2013 challenge #8

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I've read a lot of 90's fantasy and the one running theme i see in them is that adverbs and telling are used a lot. The shift away from these two things has to be a recent event. So what caused it?

No, they were saying the same things about adverbs and telling back in the 90's. I remember hearing it a lot. But then, as now, "be careful how and when and how much you do these things" gets exaggerated to "these are very bad," which isn't true and published writers just go on and do what works for them and their readers.

If a piece of writing works well, then clearly none of this is a problem. If something isn't working, then it's a good idea to go through it looking for extra adverbs or weak adverbs, for telling what you should be showing—as well as all the other things that people admonish you not to do. Because often when something isn't working quite as well as it should, one of those is the reason why.

Otherwise, these aren't things you need to obsess over.

 

[Hex]

What Teresa said.

Also, personally: the writing I find beautiful tends to use adverbs quite freely (!), although they're not always the ones ending in -ly. Though I do get confused by what an adverb is and what an adjective is and what other things are and then my head wants to explode.

---

Random example from Quintana of Charyn (Melina Marchetta):

"No one had spoken yet. No one could find it within themselves to get close enough to cover the mangled flesh of the intruder. Instead, fussing wordlessly over Florenza gave them all something to do."

Quite apart from anything else, "wordlessly" rather neatly breaks up the alliteration of "fussing over Florenza".

--------

re telling and showing -- some authors, especially those with very engaging voices, can tell all they like and it won't bother me. I'm not sure showing is always the best option unless it's a scene worth showing. You mightn't, for example, want a scene showing:

"The afternoon was one boring chore after another. Once he'd chopped the firewood and fed the chickens for the hundredth time -- it felt -- Boris was finally ready to start the Forbidden Ritual of Doom."

Because sure you could show Boris getting really bored, but there are some bits of a character's experience that mightn't enrich the story for the reader but which you might need to include so the reader knows what's going on.

You might want to show more in the scene about the ritual, though.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Used in the right place they can be brilliant. I love this from Gaiman:

"Is it an hour yet?" asked Mr Vandemar.
"Not even close," gasped the Marquis.
"Felt like an hour," said Mr Vandemar, helpfully.


That helpfully made the scene for me. And it's obviously deliberate.

 

[tinkerdan]

There really is no trouble with telling or with adverbs- they are just things to be aware of.

As for the He walked slowly and strolled -it becomes more a matter of tone you might care to create for the story. Sometimes the adverbs give a better picture.

Or you could even use it to avoid over using the same words such as:

He walked slowly around the smoking wreckage with a discerning eye upon the center of the event, while his faithful companion strolled beside him.

It's a matter of balance as has been mentioned, but it is also a point to be aware that sometimes we use the same adverbs a lot more than we should and that can easily be fixed by applying a stronger verb that needs no help.

What's interesting is that I see the use of very where there are other stronger adverbs that could be used but aren't because someone told the writer not to use the ly words and most of the synonyms to very have ly. So without using the ly one has to find a stronger verb if you want to remove all the extraneous very's that show up in your work.

Telling is another matter entirely and again the notion is to be aware of telling, but for some people it's difficult to make a distinction of telling and expository showing, something that is equally annoying. So it often gets grouped in with telling because it shows up as disjointed to the flow of the story and looks like someone is trying to tell us something about the scene the character or the world they are building.

The trick is to do the telling and all the expository within the frame work of the story and give it all meaningful context so that the writing flows into and around it.

Probably the most difficult trick is reading it once you become aware of expository writing and having to double check when you recognize it and have to go back and check the context to be sure they just put that in a logical place. Once you get to that place it means you are out of the story. If an author can get it all accomplished and get it past people who have left their editorial hats on they are doing a great job.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I'm with Hex my favourite writers all use adverbs. My very favourite ever abuses them big time. There are upto seven a page and some I am not convinced the OED knows about lol His writing is so warm and colourful that I don't care. A more modern edition has been edited and removed some of them among other things - his writing is less alive somehow and has lost the warmth that meant the very flat characters felt rounded and engaging. Also his later books are more "correct" and they just do not work as well.

Sometimes adverbs and telling are the best thing to do. There are other times they are not.

 

[IsoldeJ]

The one thing we all do, published or not, is obsess about our work to the point that it can cripple any form of creativity for fear of writing too much passive voice, the number of gerunds, exposition, adverbs... yada, yada, yada. Remind me why I want to write, please? Anyhoo...

If there's one thing I've learned it's be as objective as possible - to the point of pedantry. Ruthless editing, including many, many rewrites, are essential before any MS is fit for human, or agent/publisher, consumption. It helps to grow scales, too, so that arrows aimed at your heart bounce. Get crit, dismiss crit, grow and learn. That's all we can do.

 

[Hex]

The one thing we all do, published or not, is obsess about our work to the point that it can cripple any form of creativity for fear of writing too much passive voice, the number of gerunds, exposition, adverbs... yada, yada, yada. Remind me why I want to write, please? Anyhoo...

If there's one thing I've learned it's be as objective as possible - to the point of pedantry. Ruthless editing, including many, many rewrites, are essential before any MS is fit for human, or agent/publisher, consumption. It helps to grow scales, too, so that arrows aimed at your heart bounce. Get crit, dismiss crit, grow and learn. That's all we can do.

I need to get this on a t-shirt!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I need to get this on a t-shirt!

With scales.

 

[IsoldeJ]

I need to get this on a t-shirt!

*snerk* A tad long, but am flattered.

 

[Hex]

I wondered about a ballgown -- they've got lots of room on the flowing skirts -- but honestly I wear t-shirts more...

A scaly t-shirt, springs? Or Anubis-like scales for the weighing of crits against feathers?

Edit: Ooops I should have re-read before I posted that. Yes. Many, many layers of scales. I already have some, but I want more.

 

[Wizraban]

We have to remember that all these rules are just rules of thumb and not laws. They were made up because people usually err on the wrong side of them, but by no means do they apply to all situations. In the end, it comes down to looking at the actual words and trying to decide if they work this way.

If you can replace an adverb/verb combination with a more specific verb, this will reduce the word count and replace two somewhat bland words with a stronger one, so that's often a good idea. Sometimes you would have to add a second verb. For instance, instead of "people usually err" I could have written "people tend to err". I don't see a clear reason why one of these variants should be considered superior, it's more a matter of style. Sometimes an adverb does not add much to the meaning, so you might strike it out. But maybe the sentence looks a tad too bare without the adverb, so you might decide to keep it anyway. Perhaps the adverb adds to the atmosphere of the scene, which is valid meaning in its own right.

I haven't read Dark Tower, but in On Writing King speaks out against adverbs. Of course, he admits that he used his fair share of them.

Bottom line: there's a reason why there are adverbs. Use good judgement.

As for "show don't tell", it depends on what sort of information you want to convey. If you claim that some character is evil, clever, honorable or what have you, and it never shows in their actions, the readers will not believe it. On the other hand, not all information has to be shown. For instance, if you describe someone wearing red robes, you cannot expect readers to figure out on their own that the guy is a priest, just because seven chapters earlier you mentioned that only priests are allowed to wear red in your world. If it's necessary to tell in order to be understood, by all means do it. Also, the example about a character feeling bored is a good one.

Bottom line: Some things should be shown and some can be told. Your task is to find out which is which.

 

[IsoldeJ]

I wondered about a ballgown -- they've got lots of room on the flowing skirts -- but honestly I wear t-shirts more...

A scaly t-shirt, springs? Or Anubis-like scales for the weighing of crits against feathers?

Scales of titanium and diamond, because the mirror-like shine will reflect, as well as deflect. And why stop there, when a decent helmet and earmuffs could complete the ensemble?