As writers, we are constantly (adverb) told about the misstep of using too many adverbs in our writing. I recently received the book Nabakov’s Favorite Word is Mauve, by Ben Blatt which has the first attempt to quanitfy adverb usage by authors recognized as the masters of the craft that I have seen.
So, being a numbers person, I was drawn to this article and wanted to see how my own writing stacked up to the masters in this area.
Did Stephen King live up to his quote? The book found that, out of the voluminous novels (51) that King has written, his rate of adverb usage (strictly the ones ending in ‘ly’)is about 101 per 10,000 words or right around 1%. Ernest Hemingway, who also extolled the evils of adverbs, lived up to his claim with only 80 adverbs per 10,000 words over his 10 novels. That’s only .8%.
Shown below is a chart that I found in Blatt’s book that compares a number of popular novelists and their adverb usage number per 10,000 words.
Adverbs may not be an indicator of writing ability or quality, but you can see by this list that Ernest Hemingway practiced what he preached and other authors, like E.L. James almost doubled the use of adverbs per 10,000 words.
What does this mean for you and I? Well, I’m glad you asked. I found a tool online that will go through a sample of your writing and highlight the adverbs. This chart above only counted the ‘ly’ types of adverbs which is certainly not all of them. I put my nearly 3,000 words story, Channel 19, through this tool and here are the results:
This is a partial screen shot of the result. For a story of 2,951 words, I had 26 ‘ly’ adverbs. That’s a .88% rate. Not too shabby. I’m between Ernest Hemingway and Stephen King’s rate of adverb usage. Extrapolated to 10,000 words, that comes out to about 88 adverbs, between Amy Tan and John Steinbeck.
If only my sales were up in that area.
If you want to check out the book, You can find it HERE.
Also, if you want to run your own work through a quick tool, here are a couple you can try:
https://www.cthreepo.com/writing/adverb-detector/
Tell us your results, if you dare.
I am guilty of the over-use of adverbs. But then, I do tend to use ten words where one will do, so perhaps I just need to be more restrained in general!
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I hadn’t noticed that in your writing. In fact, your style lends itself to using more words. I think it’s fine.
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Thank you, Don. I’m lucky that I settled into my own style and ‘voice’ early on, so makes sense to stick with it.
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Reblogged this on Anna Dobritt — Author.
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Thanks, Anna
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Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog.
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Thanks for sharing this, Chris.
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Welcome, Don 👍😃
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Extremely interesting. 🙂
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Thank you. I thought so to, but I’m a nerd.
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My editor contends I make him work too hard and this is one of the reasons! So, I took the first chapter of a 60k book and I had 65 adverbs in 3979 words or .016%. I’m shocked! And so will he be. I’m sure he’ll consider it farcical and a product of an accidental writer! Thanks loads. I really, really appreciated the links, too. Truly ~ MW
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My pleasure. I’m glad this was helpful. You are in Hemingway territory.
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No way in Hell! But it is nice to dream, honestly. What great fun. And the paragraph I used wasn’t one that my editor edited…or even those wouldn’t have been there, surely! ~MW
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So, of course, I challenged my editor to see how he stacked up. This is what he replied after said challenge was completed, “Nary a one. Succinctness is sexy – brevity is best!”
I hate that he is always right ❤ xo
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Magically, the very same chapter garnered 144 adverbs in the second listed link, some of which I take issue with (left, right, on) but nonetheless the results were more than doubled at .036%. Very perplexing! LOL ~MW
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Well, I was generous on my own evaluation taking into account only those that ended with ‘ly’ like the book.
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One of those peculiarities of English. Some words ending ly can be adjectives when modifying a noun. 🙂
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Very true. There are so many peculiarities in the language, the challenges are endless.
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Reblogged this on MUFFY WILSON.
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Thanks for sharing this.
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A brilliant post, Don. I have never even considered my adverb usage. Eek! Something else to worry about.
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It’s probably not much of a worry if people are reading your stuff…that’s my take, anyway.
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Deadly….. still if I come in under J.K. Rowling in the count I will be consistent.. I come under her achievements in most things.
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LOL
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Interesting. Thanks for sharing. @sheilamgood at Cow Pasture Chronicles
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You’re welcome. Thanks for stopping by.
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Fantastic post, Don. I’ve bookmarked both tools. Great find, and thanks so much for sharing 🙂
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Thank you. I appreciate it. Glad it helped.
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Welcome, Don xx
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Thank you for sharing this Don, something to ponder….
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You’re welcome. There’s always something to ponder.
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Indeed and I am so grateful for that too!
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Many thanks for the links! 😉👍
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You’re welcome. I’m glad I could help.
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Reblogged this on Nesie's Place and commented:
Writers – more useful resource links! 😉
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Thank you for sharing this.
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An excellent post, Don. I’m going to have to run some of my writing through to see where I factor in. This was enlightening!
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Should adverbs in dialog be counted along with the rest?
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If you’re characters are speaking using adverbs, probably not, but perhaps another character should correct them and ask them not to use adverbs. 🙂
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Oops you said “probably” 🙂
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LOL-ly
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Pingback: Curated Content for Writers – August 11, 2017 | Story Empire
Thanks for sharing this.
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What a wonderful post, Don.
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Thanks. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
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Reblogged this on Nicholas C. Rossis and commented:
Don Massenzio with a fascinating examination of how often famous authors use adverbs.
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Thanks for sharing this, Nicholas.
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Great post 🙂
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Fascinating, though I would also dispute some of the words counted.
Taking the full set, I come out between Stephanie Meyer and J.K. Rowling (1.37%). Taking only the ‘ly’ words, I do better than Hemmingway (0.76%).
I guess I’ll take somewhere in the middle as a more realistic count, and I’m happy with that 🙂
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It’s fun to check out how you fall in the list.
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Reblogged this on deborahjay and commented:
Authors, how fanatical are you about adverbs?
Take the tests offered at the end of the piece, and find out!
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Thanks for sharing this.
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Reblogged this on Kim's Author Support Blog.
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Thanks for sharing this.
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My pleasure, Don!
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Thanks for sharing this
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Thanks.
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This was great thanks Don 🙂
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Thanks. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
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A most enjoyable post – thanks, Don
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Thank you. Glad you liked it.
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