Adverbs

How important are adverbs?

I must have been home sick when my class learnt about adverbs. Can I get on and write my story with people talking?

Dialogue

Surely adverbs doen’t matter when it comes to people speaking? Apparently yes and no. If we use too many adverbs, it closes down the story and naturally the same goes in dialogue.

Editing Adverbs

I have learnt to remove ‘just’ and words that end in ‘ly’ – quickly, loudly, slightly. They are superfluous to the story. They can be removed without making any difference to the sentence.

Or, the sentence could be written to give stronger prose.

‘Speaking loudly’, might become ‘he roared’.

What I’ve Learnt

Today I learnt when adverbs creep in, take a look at what I’ve written. It is weak and needs more revision. Ouch.

Looks like an extra week in editing…

Camp Nanowrimo

Camp Nanowrimo begins on Monday. It’s not too late to join. It’s a great opportunity to practice writing. Participants can work on any project. Stop stop procrastinating.

There will never be a ‘right’ time to write the book inside you.

The Blue Mountains

The background photo comes from this weeks road trip through the Blue Mountains, inland from Sydney, Australia.

Why are the Blue Mountains blue? The particles of oil from the eucalyptus tree accent the blue over distance. The mountains appear bluer after rain when a walk amongst eucalyptus trees is fragrant with the oil.

Kingsley Amis’ quote puts Adverbs into perspective.