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Showerthought: My high school English teacher told me to never use adverbs
Mrs. Patterson in 10th grade said they weaken writing. 15 years later I realize she was right for basic stories but wrong when I write horror scenes. Has anyone else broken a writing rule they were taught and seen their work improve?
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quinncarr2d ago
Jumped in headfirst with that same rule break last year. My horror short got way more intense once I started throwing adverbs back in - "slowly" and "quietly" carry so much weight when you're trying to build dread. Sometimes the old rules just don't fit what you're writing.
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michael6692d ago
Read somewhere that even the old pulp horror writers like Lovecraft threw caution to the wind with adverbs when they wanted the reader to feel the slow creep of something awful. Hard to argue with results like that.
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The adverb thing is a trap that gets pushed way too hard. Stephen King's "On Writing" says the same stuff but look at his horror novels - "slowly" and "softly" are everywhere in his scary scenes. Works fine when the moment needs that extra weight. Pretty sure my old teacher never wrote a ghost story in her life. Different genres need different tools in the box.
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