Are Adjectives and Adverbs "Bad?"

Many writers and editors will advise you to cut your adjectives and adverbs when you edit. But why?

Let's first consider what purpose adjectives and adverbs (collectively known as modifiers) serve in writing.

Nouns and verbs are our language workhorses. When we work to self-edit, these are the parts of speech that should be our main focus.

But without any modifiers, writing can be flat. The reader — and make no mistake, everything we write for an audience will only work if it serves the reader — reads for more than a skeleton of bland facts. Yes, even in a "just the facts, ma'am" text.

What we're really talking about here is specific detail or, put in a reader-focused way, interesting writing.

• Quick example: The car pulled out of the parking lot.

That's factual, but is it clear? Does it set the tone? Does it enhance meaning? Can a reader form a mental picture?

• The silver car pulled quickly out of the parking lot.

Here, we've added one adjective and one adverb. The sentence is both clearer and more interesting (while still being "just the facts").

We could stop here, but let's make it much better:

• The silver Honda Civic hatchback careened out of the parking lot, narrowly missing an oncoming minivan.

This is a much better use of modifiers (not to mention better nouns and verbs). Now, even without the added phrase about the minivan, the reader is interested. The sentence has color and clarity, hinting at a narrative and purpose.

So, the "problem" with modifiers per se is not so much in their presence but in the usage of certain types of adjectives or adverbs.

Consider the following adjectives: bad, beautiful, boring, wonderful, nice.

Do any of these adjectives tell the reader anything of substance? It's possible the answer is yes if the combination of modifier + noun is surprising:

• bad baby

• beautiful junkyard

• boring disco

• wonderful disease

• nice hippopotamus

  
  

These are all unexpected, and, therefore, intriguing. But if we pair them with something expected:

• bad dog

• beautiful garden

• boring lecture

• wonderful meal

• nice girl

we have not only failed to communicate anything of interest to the reader, we have also failed to evoke either a mental image or the accompanying enhanced meaning and engagement that such an image brings.

With adverbs, the culprits are almost always vague word choices. Very, really, super, and the like add little of interest because they are far too vague in and of themselves. Why say "I was very happy" when you can say "I was ecstatic"? Or "I am really tired" instead of "Every few seconds, I slap my face hard to remain awake"?

Same with words ending in -ly when they lack the element of surprise: run quickly, lounge lazily, peel slowly, tiptoe carefully.

If the only action you want/need to convey is that someone ran quickly, then you can just use the verb without the modifier.

• He ran

• He ran quickly

See any practical difference in the two? Any strengthened clarity? Nope and nope.

You might argue that a so-called vague adverb is necessary. A sentence like “I really love cheesecake" indicates that I don't just happen to like cheesecake, I'm an enthusiastic devotee. The adverb's presence allows for a stronger statement than having "I love cheesecake" all by its lonesome. But isn't that explanatory phrase itself, "I'm an enthusiastic cheesecake devotee," objectively more interesting than "I particularly love cheesecake"? It's clear and full of personality in ways the flat original is not.

Early drafts are chock-full* of modifiers. And that's okay! In my own writing, I consider my lackluster modifiers to be placeholders, shorthand notes to myself for future editing, places where I need to focus my attention.

For instance, how can I show my readers the arrogance and cold bedside manner of a particular doctor? How do I make them side with me and believe my judgment for themselves? I do this by clearly describing what happened in that room — the exact words she spoke and her alternately commanding and dismissive tone, the way she strutted and jabbed a pointed finger in my face — not to mention supportive information conveyed later by other characters.

I've kept "really" and "very" intact in my self-editing when their usage itself makes a point, one that I need conveyed in the plainest language possible or to indicate a certain mental state. Always, as with everything in my own self-editing, my decisions about modifiers are thoughtfully considered choices, not lazy defaults. The former is style and voice. The latter is clichéland.

Here's a handy flowchart.

Flowchart: does your modifier add anything?

One example of a "something better" to use is a metaphor — what is your something like? Another is to describe what feeling your something evokes. Or make a comparison. Or replace your verb. Or or or.

All snark aside, the strongest writing, in any genre, is the clearest and most precise writing possible.

If you want to try editing a different way, let's do my version of a Marie Kondo: keep only what brings you joy.

To do this, take your draft (or passage). Copy/paste it into a new document and give it a new name. (We don't want to lose the original, so this first step is important...not that I know from experience or anything. Noting it for a friend.)

In that new doc, delete every adjective and adverb. All modifiers: gone.

You now have a clean slate, so to speak. Read your writing — really (note the adverb) read it — with care and objectivity. Put it away and come back to it if you need to, but make sure you are reading in a clear-headed, critical, and dispassionate way.

• Is anything unclear, confusing?

• Is anything flat, boring?

• Is anything in a voice you don't recognize as yours?

If your answer to any of the above is yes, you might need a modifier — or you might need something better.

*I had to look this up to see that the hyphen is correct even in this non-compound modifier usage. Our crazy language indeed!

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