Got home yesterday afternoon—Friday—from
the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. I’m still recovering from both the
exhaustion and from the massive amount of information I acquired in the six
days of the conference. As with every writer’s conference, we discussed the
evils of adverbs, so here are some quick quotes from great writers about the
subject.
- There are subtleties which I cannot master at all,--they confuse me, they mean absolutely nothing to me,--and this adverb plague is one of them. ... Yes, there are things which we cannot learn, and there is no use in fretting about it. I cannot learn adverbs; and what is more I won't.—Mark Twain
- The road to hell is paved with adverbs.—Stephen King
- To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin.—Elmore Leonard
- How well [Evelyn Waugh] faces the problem of linking passages between the scenes. There is almost a complete absence of the beastly adverb--far more damaging to a writer than an adjective.—Graham Greene
See ya’ later.
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