“Be Choosy with LY Adverbs” by Joan Y. Edwards

Be choosy with LY adverbs like great authors. Don’t overdo it.

Sam looked adoringly at his beautifully dressed date and ran quickly to the jewelry store to buy her a diamond.

Can you think of a better way to rephrase this sentence leaving out the LY adverbs?

I stand in favor of not using LY adverbs. However, according to Ben Blatt, even best-selling authors use at least 49 of them for every 10,000 words. I  challenge you to check your manuscript for LY adverbs. They tend to pop right into your manuscripts without your even thinking about it.

Using fewer LY adverbs is one factor that will make your books stronger and sell more copies.  When you take out the adverb ending in LY and substitute stronger description words, it makes your writing stronger. It makes readers yearn to read your writing.

Writers who use fewer adverbs may wisely focus more time in choosing words that are more relevant and meaningful in their books. They brainstorm better ways to say what they mean.

In Ben Blatt’s book, “Nabokov’s Favorite Word is Mauve,” he has charts that show how many LY adverbs famous writers used in their books. What is intriguing to me is that the books that sold the most copies, won the most awards, or had the highest number of readers  had fewer LY adverbs than the other books written by the same authors.

Here are three authors with their books that have fewer LY adverbs:

1. F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby
2. Charles Dickens – A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations both had fewer LY adverbs than his other 13 books.
3. John Updike –  Rabbit Is Rich (1982) and Rabbit at Rest(1990) were both recognized with the Pulitzer Prize and they had the least number of adverbs in them than his other books.

In view of this information, I suggest that you delete the LY adverbs in your manuscripts and concentrate your mind on adding words that indicate more about your characters and the problems they face. Using LY adverbs in your draft manuscript is a place to begin, but not a place to end. Delete them in the final copy of your book.

Please share your favorite authors and tell us if they use an abundance of LY adverbs or if they are choosy with them. Resources follow my signature.

GIVEAWAY Complete.

What? You didn’t receive an email telling you about this blog post? You’re not subscribed to my blog? Receive free gifts. Join 700,000 visitors. Subscribe now. You’ll be sent an email to confirm your subscription. Thank you.

Believe in you
Thank you for believing in me.
Never Give Up
Joan Y. Edwards, Author
Copyright ©2019-2023 Joan Y. Edwards
Flip Flap Floodle
Joan’s Elder Care Guide

Resources:

1. Ben Blatt. “Nabokov’s Favorite Word is Mauve:” https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1501105388/
2. Maria Popova. “Stephen King on Adverbs:” https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/03/13/stephen-king-on-adverbs/
3. Wikipedia. “John Updike:” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Updike