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My writing teacher said cut all adverbs, and 8 months later I think that advice made my prompts boring
Back in January my old teacher, Ms. Delgado, told our whole class to hunt down and delete every adverb in our stories because they were lazy writing. So I did it for months, and my prompt responses started reading flat and samey, like everyone was describing the same gray room. Do adverbs actually kill a prompt, or did I just follow a rule past the point where it stopped helping?
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jade61810h ago
Did you ever try reading the same prompt with and without them side by side? I used to nod along with the whole "adverbs are lazy" thing until I actually did that test on my own stuff. "She closed the door quietly" versus "she closed the door" is a whole different feeling. Same with "he ran quickly" and "he ran" or "she said softly" and "she said." The bare version is cleaner but half the time it loses the mood I was going for. Cutting every single one is just trading one bad habit for another one where all your characters move and talk the exact same way.
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