adverbs in dialogue

TrapperViper · Jun 8, 2019

Hi Everyone,

Amateurish question to follow:

I have been trying to limit my use of adverbs in my writing. In dialogue though, I'm wondering if it is ok to use them often in the conversations between the characters? I'm not talking about adverbs in dialogue tags (such as, "Don't do that again," he said angrily.) I am talking about something like...Bill stood up and clapped his hands in front of his chest. "Let's just go there," he said, "It's going to be really fun."

Does the general rule to limit adverbs (or filler words for that matter) where you can still apply when they are being used between the quotation marks? Personally...it seems that using the adverbs in the actual conversations reads more authentic, but I'm very curious what you all have to teach me on the matter. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. Thanks!

Ellis Clover · Jun 8, 2019

Of course you can use them in conversations. Fictional dialogue should sound much like real dialogue, without all the hmming and hahing.

In general it's recommended that filler words (as you mentioned) be minimised because they lessen impact and are nearly always unnecessary. But dialogue is its own beast and should sound as natural as possible, keeping in mind that every character will have their own degree of formality/informality, patterns and quirks of speech.

cornflake · Jun 8, 2019

TrapperViper said:
Hi Everyone,

Amateurish question to follow:

I have been trying to limit my use of adverbs in my writing. In dialogue though, I'm wondering if it is ok to use them often in the conversations between the characters? I'm not talking about adverbs in dialogue tags (such as, "Don't do that again," he said angrily.) I am talking about something like...Bill stood up and clapped his hands in front of his chest. "Let's just go there," he said, "It's going to be really fun."

Does the general rule to limit adverbs (or filler words for that matter) where you can still apply when they are being used between the quotation marks? Personally...it seems that using the adverbs in the actual conversations reads more authentic, but I'm very curious what you all have to teach me on the matter. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. Thanks!

If that's how the person talks, sure. Be careful to have characters that don't all sound like, basically, you, which is an easy trap to fall into, as you're writing it. However, each character should have his or her own speaking style, verbal tics, that sort of thing. Not that you have to figure out a thing for every character, but the more you understand the characters, the more they should read discernibly different. If someone uses adverbs, they do, as people do.

Bufty · Jun 9, 2019

Agree all the above- and incidentally, if someone claps their hands it's generally assumed to be in front of them. :Hug2:

And fictional dialogue has to be more focused than in real life. It usually has to have a point or purpose - avoid meaningless chit-chat and/or what we call 'as you know Bob' dialogue where the dialogue is only there to convey to the reader information the characters already know - and therefore wouldn't really be talking about.

Use adverbs by deliberate choice for specific effect and/or because there is no appropriate and more effective single verb.

buz · Jun 9, 2019

TrapperViper said:
Does the general rule to limit adverbs (or filler words for that matter) where you can still apply when they are being used between the quotation marks? Personally...it seems that using the adverbs in the actual conversations reads more authentic, but I'm very curious what you all have to teach me on the matter. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. Thanks!

General rules can only ever be general; that is, there are frequent exceptions and bendy bits and fuzzy areas where it's less of a rule than a suggestion. A lot of creative writing lives in the specifics, where things can get a bit weird. Even where adverbs may not be necessary in communicating a thought, the use of them may make dialogue or bits of narrative "sound" a certain way, and sometimes that in itself is the point of them. Or can be. Doesn't have to be. Up to you

The "rule" of the thing is really "the words should have a purpose," I think, but that purpose doesn't always have to be "conveying a meaning." Sometimes it's about flavor and voice, to me.

Lakey · Jun 9, 2019

buz said:
The "rule" of the thing is really "the words should have a purpose," I think, but that purpose doesn't always have to be "conveying a meaning." Sometimes it's about flavor and voice, to me.

This is really important — except that I would not separate voice from meaning, in a broader sense of the word meaning.

Dialogue is a very funny beast. It needs to sound natural, but natural is not the same as realistic. Dialogue is not at all like a real conversation. Good dialogue is carefully constructed to be entertaining and to carry meaning, whether that meaning is story text, story subtext, characterization, or all of the above. In that way, it’s like any other component of a strong piece of fiction: architected with purpose.

And what that means, to me, is that I don’t want to waste words in dialogue any more than I want to waste them anywhere else. I don’t want any part of my story to be flabby. So I do go through my dialogue and think carefully about words like “really” and “just;” I think carefully about repetitions, when a person says something twice the same way, or repeats the last phrase the previous person said. And most of the time, I cut them. Character voice is an important thing, but use of “really” is hardly a distinctive addition that is going to contribute anything to your characterization.

There are all kinds of repetitions and verbal fillers that are “realistic” and even “natural” in the sense you will find them aplenty in real conversation, but that in a fiction are just likely to be flab. Unless there is a particular reason — and I do mean a particular reason for it in the particular instance you’re looking at — I would approach trimming dialogue the same way you approach trimming anything else in your story.

:e2coffee:

Woollybear · Jun 9, 2019

TrapperViper said:
Hi Everyone,

Amateurish question to follow:

I have been trying to limit my use of adverbs in my writing. In dialogue though, I'm wondering if it is ok to use them often in the conversations between the characters? I'm not talking about adverbs in dialogue tags (such as, "Don't do that again," he said angrily.) I am talking about something like...Bill stood up and clapped his hands in front of his chest. "Let's just go there," he said, "It's going to be really fun."

Does the general rule to limit adverbs (or filler words for that matter) where you can still apply when they are being used between the quotation marks? Personally...it seems that using the adverbs in the actual conversations reads more authentic, but I'm very curious what you all have to teach me on the matter. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. Thanks!

I've done a 180 on adverbs, for what it's worth, and now use them (happily!), but I understand that the absence of adverbs does lend itself to a spare style which some writers prefer.

I'd say, in dialogue, make the use or lack of use of adverbs part of character voice.

As a non-adverb example: If you have a scientist, they might speak in a quantitative way: Give me five minutes whereas someone else might say: Give me a few minutes.

Likewise, some people use adverbs in their speech and others don't.

Carried through the whole piece, this sort of approach can help you to create distinct characters, each with their own shading.

TrapperViper · Jun 9, 2019

This is fun. Thanks everyone! The whole "stilted conversation" feedback I got recently on my WIP had me re write a lot of the dialogue throughout the entire thing and when I did the adverb count I realized how often I was using the word "just" in the dialogue. That realization brought me to ask the question, and I sincerely appreciate the responses.

I'm curious, Patty, why you did a 180 on adverb use?

I read the other day that a very good rule in dialogue is to never have a character say to another character something he or she already knows. I think some people have referred to this as the "As you know bob."

Elle. · Jun 9, 2019

The problem with adverbs in prose especially with new writers is that they are used a lot to strengthen a weak verb where a stronger verb should be used (for example, "walk quickly" instead of "scurry", "saunter" or "walk leisurely" instead of "stroll", "meander", "amble") that's why new writers are being told not to rely on them. Once that's understood you can learn where and when to use adverbs outside of dialogue.

Lakey said:
This is really important — except that I would not separate voice from meaning, in a broader sense of the word meaning.

Dialogue is a very funny beast. It needs to sound natural, but natural is not the same as realistic. Dialogue is not at all like a real conversation. Good dialogue is carefully constructed to be entertaining and to carry meaning, whether that meaning is story text, story subtext, characterization, or all of the above. In that way, it’s like any other component of a strong piece of fiction: architected with purpose.

And what that means, to me, is that I don’t want to waste words in dialogue any more than I want to waste them anywhere else. I don’t want any part of my story to be flabby. So I do go through my dialogue and think carefully about words like “really” and “just;” I think carefully about repetitions, when a person says something twice the same way, or repeats the last phrase the previous person said. And most of the time, I cut them. Character voice is an important thing, but use of “really” is hardly a distinctive addition that is going to contribute anything to your characterization.

There are all kinds of repetitions and verbal fillers that are “realistic” and even “natural” in the sense you will find them aplenty in real conversation, but that in a fiction are just likely to be flab. Unless there is a particular reason — and I do mean a particular reason for it in the particular instance you’re looking at — I would approach trimming dialogue the same way you approach trimming anything else in your story.

^^^ THIS.

Woollybear · Jun 9, 2019

Through reading my favorite authors, I realized the effectiveness of including the right adverbs in the right places. The choice of what and when to use them might vary by genre and target audience.

Another thread today mentioned Tolstoy, whom I've not read, but I googled up an excerpt and found this:

He spoke in that elaborately choice French, in which our forefathers not only spoke but thought, and with those slow, patronising intonations peculiar to a man of importance who has grown old in court society. He went up to Anna Pavlovna, kissed her hand, presenting her with a view of his perfumed, shining bald head, and complacently settled himself on the sofa.

Similarly, the first sentence of The Fault in Our Stars is:

Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death.

Remove the 'ly adverbs' from those, and the meaning of the passages is changed. Many, many successful authors use adverbs, and not infrequently. Having said that, amateur writing can suffer from adverb abuse.

Best advice is to read and take note of what works for you and why.

WriteMinded · Jun 9, 2019

Adverbs should be respected.

In conversation, some people use many adverbs and adjectives, some do not. As writers, we try to keep the voices of our characters true to their natures.

Bufty · Jun 9, 2019

It's also mentioned in post#4.

It's a tad more than simply he or she already knows it - it refers to something they wouldn't talk about at that moment and the information in the dialogue is therefore false and only there for the reader's benefit. :Hug2:

TrapperViper said:
I read the other day that a very good rule in dialogue is to never have a character say to another character something he or she already knows. I think some people have referred to this as the "As you know bob."

TrapperViper · Jun 9, 2019

Bufty said:
It's also mentioned in post#4.

It's a tad more than simply he or she already knows it - it refers to something they wouldn't talk about at that moment and the information in the dialogue is therefore false and only there for the reader's benefit.

Yeah, sorry about that! I saw that an hour ago but didn't edit my post because others had responded. My bad for missing it earlier...

TrapperViper · Jun 9, 2019

Elle. said:
The problem with adverbs in prose especially with new writers is that they are used a lot to strengthen a weak verb where a stronger verb should be used (for example, "walk quickly" instead of "scurry", "saunter" or "walk leisurely" instead of "stroll", "meander", "amble") that's why new writers are being told not to rely on them. Once that's understood you can learn where and when to use adverbs outside of dialogue.

^^^ THIS.

This is great. Do you have a link to a cheat sheet on this? I'm sure someone has made something like this similar to the ones I've seen on filter words. Something like a "commonly used adverbs connected to weak verbs and their strong verb replacements"

- - - Updated - - -

TrapperViper said:
This is great. Do you have a link to a cheat sheet on this? I'm sure someone has made something like this similar to the ones I've seen on filter words. Something like a "commonly used adverbs connected to weak verbs and their strong verb replacements"

Disregard...this link sort of hits what I was looking for.

https://jerryjenkins.com/powerful-verbs/

adverbs in dialogue

TrapperViper

Ellis Clover

watching The Office again

cornflake

practical experience, FTW

Bufty

Where have the last ten years gone?

buz

edits all posts at least four times

Lakey

professional dilettante

Woollybear

TrapperViper

Elle.

Woollybear

WriteMinded

Derailed

Bufty

Where have the last ten years gone?

TrapperViper

TrapperViper