Hello. My name is CL (or Christy to some of you), and I'm and adverbaholic. There, I feel so much better admitting it.
Sounds funny, but it's true. I have quite an affection, or would that be affliction, with adverbs. Stephen King, as well as countless others, refer to them as lazy. And they're right. While I love to lean on my adverbs, for fear of over describing a scene, or action, it allows my readers to become disconnected to my characters. I want them to love Reece, Marley, and Charlotte, or even Michael, Julianna, and Jeffrey as much as I do. These characters have become part of my life, and I've put my blood, sweat and tears into them.
(Ok, maybe I didn't bleed for them, but Lord knows, after I broke the flash drive there was plenty of tears.)
Now that I've admitted I have a problem, the next step is trying to fix it. Of course, I won't stop writing to go back through the entire story right now. I'll start right where I am, then fix it during the editing process. That's what's for after all, to edit out all the garbage, redundancy, and crappy writing.
For those of you who wish to join me in a meeting, feel free to stop by anytime. We lunatics don't hold banker's hours.
Hi Christy ( I say simultaneously with the group)
ReplyDeleteThe first step in healing from this dreadful disease is admitting that you have a problem. It took great courage for you to come forward and I am so proud of you (we should find a chip to mark this occasion). I have been trying to overcome this myself and I think I'm close to the 6 month mark. My hubby who doesn't read (yeah, he's one of those people) said I was too descriptive. But then a good friend of mine who helps with editing my stories, told me that I was using too many adverbs to describe and not truly describing enough. So, I went back into my MS and deleted all of them which then forced me to describe things in a much better way. I'm so glad I did this, it looks great now.
Well, TC, welcome to the group. I'm working hard on recovery myself. Thanks for the support!
ReplyDeleteOh God, thank you! I love using adverbs in my work and have to brace myself to go back and edit them out. I know it makes my writing stronger, but lord, how it hurts.
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