And adjectives too. But just like our human friends and our furry friends (which, I guess, could include some of our human friends), it's best not to overuse them and take advantage of their magical friendship powers. :)
What? you say. Adverbs are evil! All they do is muck up our work and kill our prose. We have to fight back! Delete! Delete! Delete! It's our only hope.
I have to disagree. I use adverbs and adjectives all the time. Just used some yesterday—and I enjoyed it! And get this . . . I don't intend to delete them. Not even when I do revisions. Well, not all of them, anyway. Crazy? Maybe. But, what can I say? I like to live on the edge.
If you're still having your doubts, go read this article at edittorrent. It gives writers everywhere permission—permission!—from an editor, no less, to use adverbs and adjectives. Using good writerly discretion, of course.
Don't believe me? Go check it out for yourself. You'll be glad you did. :) And edittorrent is all kinds of awesome, so you might want to hang out for a bit and check out some of the other posts.
So, what about all of you? How do you feel about adverbs and adjectives?
As an experiment, I once took a short story I'd written and converted it to poetry (free verse). I learned all kinds of things about which words are essential, and those adverbs and adjectives turned out to be pretty powerful. The right choice of a single adverb or adjective could transform the meaning of a 6-word line.
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