Because of an unforeseen scheduling mix-up (and because it’s a short week after the Easter Holiday), we won’t be posting any stories or poems this week. Instead, we thought we’d take this time to revisit some of editor Nancy Kay Clark’s most popular Notes to Contributors. Today’s post combines two Notes to Contributors — one on adverbs and one on dialogue attributions (he said; she said).
BY NANCY KAY CLARK
editor/publisher of CommuterLit
Copyright is held by the author.
About adverbs
FICTION WRITING, like anything else in this world, is prone to fads and trends. And here I’m talking about writing styles and conventions, not subject matter.
For instance, creative writing mavens will frown in disapproval if you use too many adverbs — believing that you should ditch adverbs in favour of more precise verbs to convey action and character. It’s an interesting exercise to rewrite something you wrote a while back without the adverbs, using the verbs alone to describe the action. Try it, learn from it, but recognize that the “no adverbs” style is a trend not a hard-and-fast rule. Many beloved and classic 19th century novels are full to the brim with adverbs.
So should you use adverbs or not? That will depend on the piece that you’re writing. If you feel strongly that adverbs are essential then by all means go for it. I would not stick so strictly to a trend, but I wouldn’t disregard the it entirely. What appealed to the 19th century reader will not necessarily appeal to the 21st century reader or more importantly to today’s publishing gatekeepers — the editors, literary agents and publishing houses.
About dialogue attributions
Another trend in literary writing circles is to go very plain Jane with your dialogue attributions, i.e. Mary whispered, He shouted, Marvin demanded, etc… Many editors will not tolerate anything but “he/she said” and think that it’s redundant if you put “he/she asked” when you’ve already punctuated the line with a question mark. And you will definitely be pegged as a novice writer, if you end a line of dialogue in quotation marks with “he smiled” or “she laughed.”
And I see their point. A person says — not smiles — a line of dialogue. Better, I think, to change the attribution to “he said with a smile” or “she said and then laughed.”
As well as seeing a lot of “he smiled” and “she laughed” in submissions to CommuterLit, I encounter many “he continued,” “she interrupted,” “she shrugged.” Often these lines can be rejigged — “he said, continuing his story,” “she said, interrupting him,” “she said with a shrug” — or, if you think about it more, gotten rid of altogether.
I’m not as rigid as some other editors on this point. I can accept that a person can whisper or scream a line of dialogue, or call out something to someone. Beyond that though, weird attributions will jar me and I will edit them out.
(And I might stop reading altogether if I come across a character that “smiles” a line of dialogue “uproariously.”)
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