Friday is writing creepy bummers.

As a fledgling horror writer, not to mention a horror-reading millennial, I’ve been recommended Stephen King’s instructive memoir On Writing about a squillion times. I finally picked it up last week and gave it a read. The first half of the book is a true memoir, not designed to instruct writers at all, but rather to offer context on King’s own development as a writer. I love me a memoir, and knew very little about King’s life, so found this a very enjoyable side quest. My main objective, however, was to learn some technique, some craft, some technical insight into how to write well. The second half of the book delivers on the opportunity to do so as King shifts from memoir mode to writing instructor mode, offering experience and education for those of us hoping to level up.

Fun fact: I did not go to school for writing. I have never even taken so much as a college extension course on how to do any of this. I’m just some rando who thinks she might have some cool ideas rattling around and may be able to express them in cool ways. Somehow, I’ve made it through years of writing and had a few short stories published without so much as cracking the spine of Strunk & White’s Elements of Style.

This is by no means a brag. Honestly, I know I have a ton to learn about writing, I don’t think I’m anywhere near reaching my full potential, and I’m excited to improve. That said, I really balked at one piece of advice in On Writing: the advice to eliminate my adverbs.

Stephen King (or Esteban Rey, as my mother insists on calling him) despises the adverb. He goes on and on in his book about how weak a writing choice they are. While I read the section in which he grudgingly admits to using them now and again himself, including in the very same section of the book in which he rants about their worthlessness, I found myself digging in my heels and clenching my teeth. I thought back on examples of every other piece of advice he offers and couldn’t find another point on which I disagreed, but this was a tough one to stomach. There are a lot of strong opinions one way or another about King, but I challenge anyone to deny that the man has a comprehensive academic understanding of the English language and the wielding thereof.

Even considering this, I balked at abandoning (or at least cutting back on) my beloved adverbs.

Yes, of course, write how you want, rules are made to be broken, every writer has to findtheir own voice, etc. I genuinely believe this. As a reader, I adore when authors break style guide rules and write the weirdest, most unintuitive stuff. Love it. However, since reading On Writing, I can’t not notice how correct King is on this one. Adverbs almost exclusively make my writing weaker. When I reformat a sentence to work adverbs out, those sentences tend to be much more interesting, stronger, and all-around more satisfying.

For example, in recent revisions on my current in-progress collection of short stories:

Mark beamed proudly at his beautiful bride

became

Mark stole a glance at his beautiful bride. He loved being seen with her in public. The way her eyes sparkles when she was excited, the way her delicate face seemed to glow, freckles like stardust over her fine china cheekbone. She was a work of art.

To my eye and ear, the latter is a stronger choice. It informs the reader about Mark’s go-to mode of enjoying his wife (being seen with her in public, rather than just enjoying her for himself), offers us a more developed description of her physical attributes than we’d seen earlier in the piece, and demonstrates his appreciation for her happiness. No heaving bosoms or lechery here, though we see plenty of that with these two later, but a more innocent admiration.

In the previous version, while the reader may infer that Mark is proud to be married to his wife, that’s where the insight halts. We don’t see the nuance of his appreciation for her, the depth of his affection. It’s boring.

I tend to struggle with taking my time, giving my world and characters room to breathe. As someone with a technical writing background almost entirely comprised of resumes, business letters, and grant proposals, my writing is natively brief and to-the-point. Eschewing adverbs as a main ingredient, saving them to be used as a seasoning, helps me remember to expand and build out the ambiance of a scene, a feeling, an atmosphere. It improves character interiority and sensory immersion for the reader. In short: it’s better.

So ok, Esteban. I’ll still hold on to some of my adverbs, but I gotta give you this one: they do tend to weaken my prose. I’ll be saving them for when they’re absolutely, truly, purely, actually necessary. 😜

xoxo, Friday