Remember the Police Academy movies in which Commandant Loussard prefaced everything he said with ”very very very”? Comical. We laughed, and with good reason. Very is an adverb and it’s tempting to overuse it. An adverb denotes when, where, how, or how much and can modify an adjective. Typically (Yep! Typically is an adverb) it ends in an -ly. Other common adverbs are often, too, only, many, and soon. That’s hardly a comprehensive list, but this isn’t an adverb lesson; it’s a style lesson.
Consider these two sentences:
Weak: If you repeatedly use too many adverbs too many times, your writing is very amateurish and tiresome to read.
Strong: Overuse of adverbs weakens your writing.
When editing your writing, do an adverb search. First, examine -ly words to decide if you need them or if the sentence can be worded a different way. Why? Those -ly words can be a symptom of passive writing, when you feed information you want the readers to know, robbing them of experiencing it for themselves. You risk losing your reader with passive writing.
Example:
Weak: “Get out,” she said angrily. “You’ve done enough!”
Strong: “Get out.” She stomped her foot, her face red with rage. “You’ve done enough.”
Edit a second time for other adverbs. Read the sentence without them to see if they’re necessary. Be brutal. Less is more.
You will need the occasional adverb, but use it sparingly. Happy writing!
