Adverbs can be your friends WAS: Re: The Return of Tom Swift

[psychic_serpent]

I understand the criticism of some folks concerning adverbs 
like "joyfully."  Adverbs are often not the way to go when trying to 
communicate the way someone is speaking.  It is just not true that 
the words themselves can always communicate adequately the way the 
person is saying them.  Sometimes, however, if you feel the need to 
use an adverb, it might be that you need to vary the verb your using 
to indicate speech.

For instance:

"Where do you think you're going?"

could have any sort of context.  

"Where do you think you're going?" she asked softly.

"Where do you think you're going?" she whispered urgently.

"Urgently" is an adverb that helps create a fuller picture of the 
way the speaker is behaving, and by varying the 'speaking' verb from 
asked to whispered (we don't necessarily need to use 'asked' since 
that's what you do with questions) we don't have the problem of too 
many adverbs, since 'she asked softly and urgently' is awkward and 
tedious.  Someone whispering urgently is a bit on edge.  You can't 
communicate this by the words in the quote alone, or just by saying 
that their volume was soft.

"I told McGonagall about what you did," Neville said haltingly.

"I told McGonagall about what you did," Neville finally managed to 
say, shaking the entire time.

The first version, with an adverb, communicates the way he spoke, 
but the second way communicates both the way he spoke and the way he 
was behaving. ('Finally managed to say' implies that he had some 
difficulty getting the words out without cluttering the quote itself 
with annoying pauses.)

Sometimes adverbs might be examined more closely, in case the images 
being communicated through them might be better conveyed using 
another method, but sometimes they're entirely appropriate. (If 
Neville really did speak haltingly, rather than shaking all over, 
the first version would be preferred.)  When possible, adverbs 
should be used to describe the way the person spoke, stood, sat, 
moved, etc., rather than the person's mood ("joyfully" for 
instance).  "Harry slumped down in his chair and glowered at Ron," 
is more effective than, "Harry sat grumpily in his chair."  What 
does it mean to sit grumpily?  It doesn't really communicate what's 
going on.  Adverbs should be used in the service of words that are 
more clearly delineating the characters' actions, when they're used 
at all. ("Harry slumped down in his chair and glowered at Ron," has 
no adverbs.)  

--Barb

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