Adverbs, Passive Voice, and those darn similes!

An anonymous commenter made a great point yesterday on Nathan Bransford's blog. He or she ranted, if you will, about the way today's writers are so trained to avoid using adverbs and passive voice. The point was that sometimes adverbs and passive voice are the better way to write a sentence, particularly when the story is being told in a way that it is better to not use too many words or take too long to make the reader understand what's happening.

I agree with that commenter. Even Nathan admitted it was true. Instead of using so many more words to describe what someone is doing or how they're doing it, a simple adverb, ie: one word, will suffice in a much more efficient manner. I agree with that.

About the passive voice, I have found in my writing that the advice is sound. That is the advice to NOT use passive voice. In a rare circumstance, a passive voice can work, but I stress, rare. Whenever I reread my manuscripts and I find a passive sentence somehow got in there, I quickly change it to active, and the prose is improved for it, I must admit. In my two plus novels, I may have a couple passive sentences. That means no more than one per book. And the reason better be a good one. Otherwise I suggest that this advice be followed.

But the adverb thing? I would say hell yes, use adverbs, but, of course, don't overuse them, don't rely on them, and always check dictionary.com for a better verb, and if it works without an adverb, then go with it.

I routinely browse through random books whenever I find myself at a book stand or bookstore. I find adverbs all the time. I also find a lot of similes. The standing orders are to not use similes. I agree with that, although using one now and then is acceptable if it's not a familiar one and the sentence is improved for it. In my two books, I might have half a dozen. That means maybe three in each. Like everything else...don't overdo it.

Imagine my shock when I browsed through a random book and found SEVEN similes on the first page alone!! I didn't bother checking out page two. Sheesh, was that some bad writing. And it was published. Go figure.