Your Adverbs Are Doing Your Verbs’ Job

“She walked quickly across the room.”

Seven words, and three are working harder than they need to. “Quickly” is telling you what “walked” failed to show. The sentence has a good verb, but it is asleep on the job, so an adverb got hired to compensate.

“She strode.” One word. The verb does everything “walked quickly” tried to do, and it carries attitude the adverb never could. Striding means purpose. Confidence. Maybe anger. “Walked quickly” means a treadmill.

The pattern repeats across most manuscripts. “Said loudly” wants to be “shouted.” “Looked carefully” wants to be “studied.” “Ran fast” wants to be “sprinted.” Each time, the adverb is a flag telling you the verb was not specific enough.

The deeper problem is not laziness. Writers often pick a generic verb first and modify it, when the better move is choosing the exact verb from the start. “He ate hungrily” gives you two pieces of information. “He devoured” gives you one image that contains both.

Not every adverb needs to die. “She smiled slightly” means something different from “she smiled.” The test: can you replace the verb-plus-adverb with a single stronger verb? If yes, do it. If the adverb changes the meaning in a way no single verb can, keep it.

Open your current draft. Highlight every adverb. For each one, ask: what stronger verb would make this unnecessary? Rewrite the five worst offenders. Watch your sentences tighten.

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