Too many adjectives and adverbs

Hi there, Barb. You may want to submit this to the Share Your Work forum for a full critique, but I'll throw my opinion out there anyways:

I don't think this is a very strong beginning, simply because it's all passive. There is no action. Maybe try rewriting it with your MC waking up and going to school, using dialog to get across the normalcy of her situation and her frustration with it. Don't use back story to describe the story, just write the actual story! (If that makes any sense...)

Hope that helps!

d&f.

I agree with d&f. The beginning is weakened by the laundry list and the fact there's no action.

Ooh. That was passive itself.

I rephrase:

The lack of action weakens the opening, as does the laundry list of characters.

Bum.

Well, that'll learn me to read posts properly.

I'm just chiming in with - I have that book and I love it!

Barb D said:

Man, you scared me! I thought you meant you have MY book! Am I plagiarizing without realizing it? Then I realized you were talking about The First Five Pages. Whew!

In any case, I posted the first three chapters in their entirety over on the SciFi/Fantasy Share Your Work board. Feel free to pop over there and critique away.

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125605

Click to expand...

LOL! Sorry. No, I meant Noah Lukeman's book. Gotta run for the moment. I hope to look at your chapters later.

My name is Jane. Dick is my brother. My dog is named Spot. See Dick Run. See Spot chase Dick.

Barb, you can get rid of the adverbs and adjectives if you inject particularity -- specific images that mean the same thing as 'fairly average'. It can help if you're indirect or surprising. I've had a quick cut at it to show how it might look:

Write a draft or three, and then you may discover that (oops used the dreaded that) you do not need the first chapter.

Barb D said:

That's awesome! Only problem is I HATE Barry Manilow!

Click to expand...

He speaks well of you.

Oh - I'm an inveterate twiddler, and I kept twiddling the text after I posted, little realising that you'd replied already. I hope that the twiddled version is a bit sharper than the one you first saw.

donroc said:

Write a draft or three, and then you may discover that (oops used the dreaded that) you do not need the first chapter.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry that I can't really add to the original conversation... I just wanted to comment on "the dreaded that." Is it really so dreaded? English is like the only language you can drop the "that" in.

Original conversation: I like the second paragraph for an opener, better than the first. But then, you said it isn't the real beginning... so I am not helpful.

Passive is a type of sentence structure. There were no passive sententances in the exerpt, so I am not sure why people are saying it is passive. It is not "exciting," but perhaps that was the author's intention. My advice to the OP is never worry about what it looks like in first draft. Often writers re-write up to dozens of times. The idea is to get the story out. So, I understand the MC is "different." As others have said, try to show it. In the mean time, write the whole thing through and don't frustrate yourself at the very beginning.

Adverbs get a bad rap. Like everything else, they're fine when used correctly, bad when not. I just had a discussion about this in a crit group, and as I happened to have my copyedited ms sitting there on my desk, I did some checking.

My ms, bought by a editor at a major publishing house, copyedited by a pro, has 629 -ly words in its 73K words. Not ONE of my adverbs were cut. I had them in my opening pages too.

Sometimes adverbs are the right choice. They can do what other words can't. The problem comes when they're used in place of action, and the writer relies on them to tell the story instead of doing it themselves. Kinda like cliches.

And adjectives are descriptive, so how can you cut them and still tell a story? Same thing, they're problematic when they're overused. A green satin brocaded vest with gold buttons and a rose-colored trim is probably overkill. Especially if the vest in question is being yanked off as the protag is escaping out a window. A window with French lace curtains hanging on a white enamel rod with roses and lily-of-the-valley painted along the softly rounded edges. (See?)

If the words -- whatever they are -- get in the way of the story they're bad. If they add to the story and help move the plot along, they're good.

In your example, the fairly normal didn't bother me because they were adverbs or adjectives, but because you used this same idea several times and didn't offer any new information. Fairly normal and typical are basically the same, and since you opened up with how fairly normal the family was, repeating that they were typical wasn't necessary. You could have used strong nouns and verbs and it still would have bugged me. It wasn't what you used, but how you used them.

Tell the most engaging story you can and always make the reader want to know what happens next. Do that, and no one will care how many adverbs you have.

Writing in first person, you walk a knife-edge. On one side, first-person narration is like dialogue. You're exempted from many of the usual "rules" of writing. If that's how the character would say it, that's how she would say it. Period. On the other side, the whole book has to be written that way. If the narrator's natural voice isn't a good storytelling voice, the story is going to be tedious and hard to read. So it's in your best interest to stick close to the "rules" anyway.

The issue with adjectives and adverbs is the difference between showing and telling. Your excerpt tells. Ruv Draba's rewrite shows.

Often it isn't how many adjectives and adverbs you use; it's which adjectives and adverbs you use. What does "fairly normal" mean? What does it look like, taste like, smell like?

Watch out for adjectives that are value judgments: pretty, ugly, funny, happy, normal, weird, many. Use a specific adjective instead: red, rough, salty, tangled, dry, fifteen.

When adverbs modify adjectives, watch out for qualifiers: fairly, almost, somewhat, very, often. Omit them.

When adverbs modify verbs, watch out for those that are propping up weak verbs: walked slowly=plodded, ran quickly=dashed, cried softly=whimpered, knocked loudly=pounded. Sometimes there isn't a better verb, but take a second look to be certain before you settle for the adverb.

Why in the hey are you trying to bore your readers on the first page? Give them a reason to read page two.

Adjectives and adverbs are like salt. A pinch makes the soup taste better. A cup makes it inedible.


(Oh, and I liked Ruv's rewrite.)