Adverbs and Adjectives

So I finally found a topic I feel qualified to give advice about: adjectives and adverbs.

Now, most people will tell you that these are the bane of your manuscript. Stephen King even said, "The path to Hell is paved with adverbs." But that isn't necessarily true. You can use modifiers (adjectives and adverbs) but you don't need to to load up your manuscript with them when strong nouns and verbs will do.

What is a strong noun or verb? They're nouns and verbs that convey the image you want without any modifiers. For instance, "the tall woman with long limbs and brown hair," can be changed to "the lanky brunette". You'll notice there's still an adjective there, but it's serving its purpose. Those modifiers that I used in the first example (tall, long, brown) aren't doing much, and they're not very interesting. The word "lanky" conveys a better image than "tall [with] long limbs".

Now, let's practice strengthening nouns and verbs with this sentence: "The huge,tall house was next to the long, wide street."  Not a very good sentence, is it? No, it isn't. So we're going to fix it. 

Let's start with "The huge, tall house". Instead of using all those modifiers, let's just call it a mansion. Now, let's tackle, "was next to". How about we replace it with a strong verb and adverb: "towered over". The word "towered" tells us that the house is very tall, without explicitly telling us.

And now, for the "long, wide street." Let's call that "Pheasant Way," because pheasants. Putting all this together, we get: "The mansion towered over Pheasant Way." Much better, don't you agree?

What was the point of this exercise? To show you how much difference can be made by swapping out imprecise modifiers for sturdy nouns and verbs. 

Happy writing, and don't forget to strengthen your prose!