I've been going through my WIP and ruthlessly stripping out any words that end in -ly. Which could be dangerous as my heroine is called Emily.
Adverbs don't pop up in my dialogue tags too frequently, just pretty much everywhere else. My characters are always suddenly doing things (which must be rather tiring) and when they're not frowning slightly or smiling faintly, they're often utterly speechless and totally baffled.
So I take out as many as I can (and deposit them here instead), but as a result my sentences feel sort of bereft.
Does anyone else suffer from the same adverb addiction?
3 comments:
I think I'm over-aware of these words and only use them if I really, really, really (whoops) think them necessary! But of course... now you've given me something to procrastinate with. Instead of writing the ending...I can search for 'ly' words!!
Is this something your editor picked up??
No, no. Just my inner perfectionist doing a bit of self-editing.
My chapter, synopsis and editor's comments are up on the iheartspresents next week! Gulp.
Have you heard anything about yours?
Nope - haven't heard a word! Can't wait to read yours though :)
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