Adverbs Are They Overused or Essential?

Adverbs are sometimes overused but are they essential? Some people say that adverbs are redundant and that they weaken the verbs impact. Some say adverbs lead to messy prose and indicate lazy and cluttered writing. Is this true? To a degree, it is, but adverbs still have their place in my opinion.

What is an Adverb?

Adverbs are modifiers used alongside verbs, adjectives or other adverbs. Adverbs tell the reader ‘how, when, where, why, or to what extent’ They can be used to modify other adverbs as well. This is how they can end up being overused as you might find a direct verb is more succinct and clear.

A lot of adverbs end in -ly such as ‘quietly, quickly, loudly, slowly’. Any adjective that you can add -ly to will become an adverb. Be aware that sometimes adding an -ly isn’t correct. Avoid using it with linking verbs associated with using the senses.

“The cake smells nice/nicely.”

Using an adverb here suggests the cake is doing the smelling, so you need to use the adjective ‘nice’ instead of ‘nicely’. Nobody ‘feels badly’ after receiving sad news, as they’re not using their sense of touch. So they ‘feel bad’ about it instead.

Degrees of Adverbs

Adverbs, like adjectives, come in degrees. There is the standard form, the comparative form that compares one thing to another and the superlative form which compares three or more things. Here’s a couple of examples.

Adjective:

Positive: Good Comparative: Better Superlative: Best

Adverb:

Positive: quickly Comparative: more quickly Superlative: most quick

In formal writing you should use these forms of adverbs. Nobody is saying you can never use adverbs at all, but you should consider carefully if there’s a better way to say something.

How To Avoid Overusing Adverbs

One trap a lot of writers fall into is using adverbs to add more description and qualification to things. Especially in dialogue tags where writers will add adverbs to each dialogue tag to keep them varied and ensure the reader knows how each character is speaking.

So when you find this in your own writing, look carefully at it and ask yourself if the adverb serves an important function to convey your meaning. Or if the dialogue itself and perhaps a brief indication of body language is enough to imply tone of voice and emotions. Look at this example.

“I’m done with you! Never contact me again. Goodbye!” he yelled loudly into the phone before slamming it down angrily.

What do you think? I’d say that the exclamation marks indicate loudness, and the verb ‘yelled’ also implies a raised voice so we really don’t need ‘loudly’ in this sentence. Same goes for the action of slamming the phone down, nobody does that if they are happy. Let’s rewrite it.

“I’m done with you! Never contact me again. Goodbye!” he yelled, slamming the phone down.

See? You use less words but it’s still clear that the speaker is angry. There will be times where you need an adverb. Use them where you need to, but ensure you do need them.

Thanks for reading! I’ve got some more Fallout content coming soon, so look out for that. Follow me on social media for more behind-the-scenes and follow my YouTube channel for gaming and story-telling content.

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