The road to hell is paved with adverbs
It was Stephen King who said the road to hell is paved with adverbs. I think he also said to use adverbs sparingly (yes it is a joke). It should come as no surprise that the only writing quotes I can really remember come from King, since his On Writing is the only writing book that I’ve read from beginning to end.
I spent quite a bit of time looking for the F. Scott Fitzgerald quote that went something like “don’t use adverbs so often because it makes you look like an amateur jackass, loser.” But I couldn’t find it.
My abject hatred of adverbs started in college. I was a doofy reporter for the Spotlight section when one of the Chief Copy Editors chucked the AP Stylebook at my head and threatened to beat me to a bloody pulp if I used one more adverb in any of my stories ever. You get hit in the head with the AP Stylebook enough and the lesson begins to stick.
It took me many, many years of working in marketing where it’s all easily, breezily, beautifully, and more! to get over my adverb disdain. I was doing really good for awhile there. I could adverb just about any adjective with the best copywriters. But then I started taking fiction writing classes at The Loft and was flooded with adverbs. In fact, I became that person who would circle or underline every adverb in a story. Ask Peabo, she’s been witness to the obsession.
So imagine my horror and dismay when upon reading Chuck Klosterman’s Downtown Owl when I find something like twenty-four adverbs in the first four pages, five of them in a single sentence. Here is but a small example of what I’m talking about (emphasis mine):
As such, the program was known as the Owl Eagles for all of the 1964-1965 school year. Contrary to community hopes, this change dramatically increased the degree to which its sports teams were mocked by opposing schools. During the especially oppressive summer of 1969, they decided to change the nickname again, this time becoming the Owl High Screaming Satans. (New uniforms were immediately purchased.) Two games into the ‘69 football season, the local Lutheran and Methodist churches jointly petitioned the school board, arguing that the nickname “Satan” glorified the occult and needed to be changed on religious grounds; oddly (or perhaps predictably), the local Catholic church responded by aggressively supporting the new moniker, thereby initiating a bitter feud among the various congregations.
It made me angry. Not just because Klosterman is being lazy and relying on adverbs to get his point across but because some editor (or friend, or reader) didn’t call him on his bullshit. And if someone did call him on it, I’m just as angry that he didn’t fix it.
We all do crappy stuff in our drafts, but we rely on our peers and fellow writers to call us on it. I can totally understand about staying true to your story but distracting adverbs don’t help your story at all, in fact it ruins it. As a reader I was pulled out of the world Klosterman was creating because of the excessive use of adverbs, and any time a writer disturbs that fictional dream he/she fails.
Damn. It’s so disappointing.
Tags: adverbs, Chuck Klosterman, Writing
Posted on Wed, 17 September 2008 at 9:39 pm
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Lovely.
18 Sep 08 at 8:09 am #I liked Klosterman’s writing. Well I liked Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs anway. My problem is that the writing style becomes so predictable, that Chucky boy ceases to be amusing. BUT remember: if Mr. Klosterman was in the third grade, his writing would be highly praised.
18 Sep 08 at 11:36 am #I’ve never read any of Klosterman’s fiction, but saw him read a couple of days ago in NYC. I couldn’t help but edit in my head as he read along. His sentence structure came off as repetitious, and overall it seemed like I wasn’t hearing a story as much as having Klosterman explain a story to me. In other words, it seemed like Klosterman himself was explaining a story that he had in his head, rather than allowing you to experience the story yourself.
I kind of like Chuck Klosterman, but if I didn’t, I would say that there is a huge gap between the reader and the characters, and that Klosterman makes you pay a toll to his ego before bridging the gap for you in a half-assed sort of way.
18 Sep 08 at 4:02 pm #Klosterman, as far as I know, has only released one piece of fiction, an unreadable short story that appears at the end of Klosterman IV.
His sentence structure is repetitious! In fact in dialog, all his characters tend to repeat themselves. It’s a bit on the annoying side.
You are so right on the tell vs. show. That’s what this is. It feels really rookie fiction-y to me — the kind of stuff that I workshop in class all the time.
18 Sep 08 at 7:41 pm #I’ve read Klosterman in spite of his sentence structure. I do enjoy the ideas he has, but that’s much easier to handle with non-fiction (where it has struck me that the only thing his editor does is make sure there’s no egregious typos–must be a cushy paycheck).
I wasn’t planning on taking on this attempt at fiction anyway, but now I’m definitely staying away.
Crap. I threw an adverb in there. It’s infectious.
20 Sep 08 at 1:14 am #I find myself using “apparently” and “really” on my blog lately, but I try to tell myself I’m being ironic so it’s OK.
29 Sep 08 at 2:46 pm #Oh, I am guilty of that in my blogging too. A big fan of clearly and obviously, here. I should practice what I preach. However, in my fiction I rarely (heh) use adverbs.
29 Sep 08 at 2:48 pm #Using adverbs the way some unsuccessful writer in a fiction class told you to is a great way to write like every other writer.
I prefer to write beautifully.
31 Oct 08 at 1:04 pm #Well, that’s good for you. Way to make disparaging assumptions about my writing based on what I said about adverbs.
31 Oct 08 at 1:08 pm #I agree that Klosterman went overboard in the passage you provided, but there’s nothing wrong with the routine use of adverbs. Need proof? Pick up a copy of The Great Gatsby, This Side of Paradise, or anything else by Fitzgerald.
When it comes to something as creative and expressive as fiction writing, sweeping generalizations shouldn’t be applied as doctrine. Adverbs can make or break a composition, but there’s no rule as to how many or when they should be used.
30 Dec 08 at 4:41 pm #