My new husband is a long-time Ayn Rand fan and has belonged to their Objectivist group for decades. I went to a meeting or two. There were some very nice, seemingly intelligent people there, yet I remained skeptical about some of their beliefs about altruism and their extreme anti-religion stance, among others. So, I thought, “I should re-read The Fountainhead.” I hadn’t read it since my pre-Master of Fine Arts (MFA)  in Creative Writing degree. I remember, though, that I had some trouble slogging through the book, and although the characters were sort of interesting, I had been left with the impression that it was not a particularly pleasurable piece of writing. So, in order to further my fine connection with my new sweetheart, I decided I should try again.

But let me back up a bit. During my first writers’ workshop in the MFA program at Western Michigan University, when the students and instructor critiqued my short story, much of the feedback was about my overuse of adverbs. I was a little puzzled because I liked them. I thought that they added depth to each description. An adverb, by the way, is a word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb and often ends in ly. I hadn’t understood that they were weak replacements for strong verbs that could stand on their own. Here’s a quick example from Grammerly.com:

The boy ran really fast to catch the runaway ball.  (The adverb is “really.”)

The boy sprinted to catch the runaway ball. (“sprinted” replaces “really fast.”)

Which version do you prefer? Which one is easier to read? Which one has more power?

Horror fiction writer Stephen King has received numerous accolades for his book On Writing: A Memoir on the Craft published in 2000. In it he says “The adverb is not your friend . . . . I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops. To put it another way, they’re like dandelions. If you have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day . . . fifty the day after that . . . and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions. By then you see them for the weeds they really are, but by then it’s—GASP!!—too late.  . . . With adverbs, the writer usually tells us he or she is afraid he/she isn’t expressing himself/herself clearly, that he or she is not getting the point or the picture across.”

What he is saying is that amateurish writers, in their insecurity and panic, unconsciously (See, sometimes they are appropriate.) add adverbs to compensate for feelings of incompetence. I did it. And Ayn Rand did it. Some may want to give her some slack for English being her second language, but upon trying to re-read The Fountainhead, I see that her English is just fine, but the overabundance of adverbs creates a middle-school-aged-girl attempt at writing. Granted, her philosophy, characters, and setting were mature, but her delivery leaves us feeling bogged down.160913-blog-rmep-adverb

The standard rule is “one adverb per 300 words” like Stephen King’s “one dandelion.” Three hundred words comprises about one page of text. I began underlining each adverb in The Fountainhead and discovered 6-12 per page. So there was my ah-hah moment. Now, was I to share this with my sweetheart who so adores this writer? Of course, I couldn’t restrain myself, and I think I did it tactfully. But let’s take a look at a random page from the novel. This page has only 7 adverbs (LOL), and here they are: furiously, sweetly, really, automatically, limply, and really again. Let’s take the “furiously” one first:

“No!” he gulped furiously. “Not Shlinker!”

So what does it mean to “gulp furiously”? Could she have written, “He gulped hard, the veins in his neck popping out”? Which would you prefer as reader? My re-write allows the reader to “see” what is going on without having to think about what furiously means.

Here’s another, the one following the above sentence:

“Yes,” she said sweetly. “Shlinker.”

I would suggest the following rewrite:

She tilted her head, glanced down, displayed a sweet smile, and said, “Yes, Shlinker.”

Here the reader gets a clear visual and doesn’t have to stop and think about what sweetly might mean in this context.

Another:

“But she was his mother and this fact was recognized by everybody as meaning automatically that he loved her.”

So why make the reader stumble on the word automatically when she could have left it out with even greater impact? The word is not necessary and only serves to clutter up the writing. In fact, by adding it, she dilutes the impact of the sentence. Try re-reading it without automatically. Much better, right? Or maybe leave out the adverb and add a second sentence, “But did he?”

One more:

“It was a plea for help. Roark was there, on a davenport in the corner, half lying, sprawled limply like a kitten.”

Have you ever known of a sprawled kitten that isn’t limp? Why clutter up this writing with unnecessary words? Or she could have said, “sprawled like a dozing kitten,” which would be more accurate.

The key to adverb overuse: clutter.  This is why I had the vague memory of reading The Fountainhead as cumbersome. It is filled with clutter, making it, overall, an unpleasant reading experience.

But most people don’t understand this. How many readers actually study the science of writing? Not many. They just take what they get and don’t analyze the writing. I recently purchased a novel in the Denver airport about the turning point when wolves became domesticated dogs. I did a quick scan for adverbs, didn’t see many, so, because we were boarding in minutes, I bought it. I like dogs. But once into it, I found that it, too, was cluttered with adverbs and other silly stuff. I schlepped it around the East Coast for over a week and left it, only 39 pages in, on a seat in the Newark Airport—fifteen dollars down the drain. Oh well. I am a fan, by the way, of Walter Isaacson’s writing. The former CEO of CNN and editor of Time Magazine , he wrote the biographies of Einstein, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, and Henry Kissinger. I also admire the writing of Jan Swafford, who wrote the biographies of Beethoven and Brahms. I think the writing of both is exquisite with nary an adverb to be found.

Oh, and no, I did not get through The Fountainhead. I was so distracted by the adverbs, I couldn’t read past the third chapter and with as much sweetness as I could muster, I returned it to my husband. Or did I return it to him sweetly?

I hope that these examples of adverb overuse illustrate the reasons why adverbs get such a bad rap among professional writers. In most cases they are unnecessary clutter that can be left out. Also in most cases, a strong, spicy verb would do much better.


Susan is a retired English professor of 25 years who enjoys all that her home state of Colorado offers. She is an avid road bicyclist, hiker, and viola player with six published books who has really, really—yes really—enjoyed teaching grammar and mechanics to her students.