TOM SWIFT LIVES

by Robert Lopresti

I suppose this gets filed under Criticizing My Betters.

I am reading a novel by a best-selling mystery writer. It is my first encounter with her and, I suspect, my last. I have found it a hard slog and I just realized what part of the problem is.

I’m drowning in an ocean of adverbs.

Adverbs are the crutches of the English language. We use them when we haven’t been able to make nouns, verbs, and adjectives tell the whole story. They tell when we have failed to show.. The worst of the lot is what I call the stage direction adverb, the one that tells the reader how a line of dialog is spoken, because the speech itself doesn’t do the job.

This is what led to the minor form of humor called the Tom Swiftyism. (“Drop your weapon,” Tom said disarmingly. “You mean this knife?” she asked sharply.)

Twenty-eight reasons to complain

The author I am currently reading loves adverbs. Loves ’em to bits.

I just went through a long chapter of her book (8,000 words) and here is how her characters spoke.

Unhappily
Reluctantly
Tensely
Levelly (twice)
Gently (thrice)
Rapidly
Frankly
Earnestly
Impulsively
Ruefully
Exasperatedly
Sharply (twice)
Huskily
Quietly
Bitterly
Obediently
Cheerfully
Conversationally
Graciously
Carefully
Slowly
Quickly
Simply
Honestly

Written out like that it almost tells a story, doesn’t it? Almost.

(And by the way, am I the only one who now has “The Lees of Old Virginia” from 1776 stuck in his head? “Social? Lee! Political? Lee!” Etc.)

Whiner, heal thyself

Perhaps you wonder if I practice what I preach. I was wondering the same thing. And so, with a certain amount of trepidation I just went to my most recent sale, hit Ctrl-F and hunted for the dreaded “ly.” My story is about one-fourth as long as the famous author’s chapter and it has two speech adverbs compared to her twenty-eight. So at least I’m not a hypocrite.

By the way, both of my adverbs were “softly” and one of those appeared as “The sheriff spoke softly but his voice…” Which is not quite the same.

Looking back at my two “softlys,” I think I needed them both. (Volume is hard to communicate otherwise.) But every adverb should be treated as guilty until proven innocent. Interrogate the little devils. Yes, I believe in parts-of-speech profiling.

Seriously.