Changes I would make

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 177402

Laura Lynn Walsh wrote:
<snip> 
> In another newsgroup that I belong to, the book under discussion was
HP and the Deathly Hallows.  JKR's writing was described as "Grade B".
 I had never understood why book people looked down on her writing so
much, when it is obviously good enough not only to spark world-wide
interest, but also thousands of messages discussing topics related to
the world she invented.
> 
> Finally, someone pointed out the "she said / he said + adverb"
problem, something that I had NEVER noticed before, even though I have
read all of the books multiple times <snip> Evidently people who write
"beautifully" are expected to use more descriptive words for the word
"said" and not use the "said + adverb" construct unless they can't
avoid it.  Now that I understand at least a bit what they are talking
about, it does seem that she overuses it.  But, to me, the ideas, the
plot development, the complexity, and the characters all overshadow
the problem with overuse of adverbs.
> 
> As I said on that forum, I wish I could write that "badly".
> 
> I wonder if her editors should have suggested changes there.

Carol responds:

As a professional copyeditor, I'm generally not bothered by the use of
adverbs, which are a perfectly legitimate part of speech. How is
"Snape sounded furious" any better than "Snape said furiously" (both
of which JKR uses in "The Prince's Tale")? Is there a synonym for
"said furiously" that would convey the meaning any more clearly? IMO,
"said" is a perfectly good word, easily varied with a few common
synonyms (asked, answered, shouted, whispered) and occasionally, with
a precise synonym denoting the tone of voice or facial expression
(snarled, sneered, wailed, etc.), but synonyms, like any stylistic
device, can be overdone. There's nothing wrong with occasionally
augmenting "said" with an adverb. ("Silkily" is a favorite of JKR's
though I'd prefer her restricting its use to Snape, for whom that tone
of voice is a characteristic mannerism, rather than also using it for
Umbridge and Voldemort, which dilutes the effect, IMO. Besides, "said
Snape silkily" is nicely alliterative and Slytherinishly sibilant, and
I can't think of a one-word verb that conveys the same meaning
effectively.) JKR also does a good job of mixing action and
description with dialogue as a way of indicating who is speaking
without directly attributing it using "said" or a synonym for "said."

What I do find distracting in JKR's is a tendency to write
unattributed dialogue, so that I'm sometimes unsure who is speaking.
(Was it Sirius or James who dubbed Severus "Snivellus" in "The
Prince's Tale"? I think it was Sirius, but I can't be sure. Who cast
the Petrificus Totalus that saved Harry from Fenrir Greyback in HBP? I
thought it would turn out to be Snape, shooting around the corner as
he fled with Draco, but we're never told who cast it.) Whether that's
a flaw in the writing or deliberate misdirection, I'm not sure, but
misdirection should be cleared away later. There's no reason to keep
the speaker mysterious in those two instances (and others).
Unattributed dialogue is fine when only two people are involved in a
conversation and the reader can follow the sequence based on content
and other clues, but if three or more people are present, the speaker
should be identified in some way unless there's a good reason for
keeping the identity mysterious.

Another habit of JKR's that I find annoying both as a reader and as a
copyeditor is a tendency to misplace modifiers, resulting in awkward
and sometimes unclear sentences. "A pretty girl in a blue dress that
he didn't know" ("Yule Ball" chapter of GoF, quoted from memory)
suggests that Harry was unacquainted with the blue dress but actually
refers to Harry's (mistaken) impression that he doesn't know the
girl.) Another one is "Wandless, helpless, Pettigrew's pupils dilated
in terror" (DH Am. ed. 470). No doubt Pettigrew's pupils were wandless
and perhaps they were helpless, but the adjectives should refer to
Pettigrew himself, not his pupils. (I know there are other examples of
the type, "Harry said loudly, who . . . ," but I can't find an example
at the moment.) The misplaced or dangling modifiers are infrequent,
but when I'm *not* looking for them, they jump out at me, and I wonder
why the copyeditor didn't correct the sentence in the interest of
readability.

Carol, who's sure she'll find a perfect example as soon as she hits Send