Why should you avoid adverbs?

Question

If we have adverbs in our dictionary, why should we avoid them in creative writing? Isn't that their purpose? How am I supposed to write without adverbs?

Answer 1

Whenever you use an adverb, that means that there's a stronger verb you could be using. For example, instead of,

"She screamed really loudly."

You could say,

"She screeched."

Or instead of,

"He ran quickly for the door."

You could say,

"He sprinted for the door."

When you use stronger verbs, it's more concise, easier to read, and gives your audience a better image of what you're describing. In published writing, you'll find that most authors use very few adverbs. You don't have to eliminate them entirely, but remember that whenever you're using an adverb, you could use something stronger. The exception would be dialogue, because in real life, people use a lot of adverbs. Otherwise, though, say goodbye to the -ly.

Answer 2

Perhaps write with a thesaurus on hand. I do. Not that you need to use fancy words, but there's probably an explicit verb to better describe what you're saying. Being too wordy can indicate a lack of vocabulary to the reader.

A different unnecessary use of adverbs is redundancy:

example of adverb overwriting: A lot of inexperienced writers often tend to needlessly over describe, sometimes to the point of being redundant.

same sentence rewritten: A lot of inexperienced writers tend to over describe, to the point of being redundant.

removing: often, needlessly, sometimes

It makes for an easier read. As a reader I appreciate that. Just the way I see it. It can be subjective and not absolute, but if it's constant through, let's say a script, by page 120 I'd get annoyed if I thought the script could be written in 110 pages.

p.s. In the spirit of less is more, let your reader do some imagining of their own while reading your writing.