I hate finding the word 'suddenly' in a story.
That hideous, lazy word throws me right out of the story and makes me grunt in annoyance. There are three reasons why:
Let me dive deeper--
Adverbs that end in –ly are often redundant. For example in the phrases, ‘she whispered quietly’ or ‘she shouted loudly’ the adverb repeats the information contained in the verb. They’re often used to prop up a weak verb rather than rephrasing a sentence. Instead of ‘She quickly ran to his side’ the reworded ‘She sprinted to his side’ is much stronger. This type of adverb is often used to hedge a statement. The hedged phrase, ‘The room was fairly dark and cramped’ can be simplified as ‘the room was dark and cramped’ or, even better, ‘shadows filled the cramped room.’ The worst –ly adverbs tend to be used: in dialogue tags, she said meekly; as intensity words – extremely, terribly, happily; or to describe actions – I raised my sword and he suddenly stopped.
Which segues to my second reason for despising the word ‘suddenly’. Using it is telling me what’s happening instead of using words to show me. ‘I raised my sword and he stopped mid-stride’ shows me an image of how he stopped. He could have also ‘screeched to halt’ or ‘skidded to a stop’ all three examples show us how he stopped and we understand that the stop was sudden. ‘Suddenly’ shows us nothing.
The third reason for my disdain for the word ‘suddenly’ is how it becomes meaningless when overused. I’m part of a book club that spawned out of my local writers group. We’ve been reading award-winning and highly-acclaimed novels to critique what about them works (or doesn’t). We look at structure, theme, language, dialogue, style, plot etc. Two of the books we’ve read this year were riddled with the word ‘suddenly’. I got so annoyed that I counted how many times it was used—in both books—the word ‘suddenly’ was used 32 times. Used that often, any jarring punch that should be associated with the word loses its impact. If every action or observation happens ‘suddenly’ then the value of the term is lost. Instead, that suddenness becomes commonplace and expected rather than rare and shocking.
There are stronger and more evocative words and phrases out there to express that sense of abruptness. It’s OK to use as many dreadful adverbs you like in your first draft. Use them as place-keepers but please edit them out for stronger words and phrases in your second draft. And, to stop me grunting at your book or story in disgust, make sure that you replace or delete all (or most) of your suddenly’s before you hit save on your final manuscript.
That hideous, lazy word throws me right out of the story and makes me grunt in annoyance. There are three reasons why:
- A general dislike of –ly adverbs.
- It’s telling me what’s happening rather than showing me.
- It loses all power when it’s misused and overused.
Let me dive deeper--
Adverbs that end in –ly are often redundant. For example in the phrases, ‘she whispered quietly’ or ‘she shouted loudly’ the adverb repeats the information contained in the verb. They’re often used to prop up a weak verb rather than rephrasing a sentence. Instead of ‘She quickly ran to his side’ the reworded ‘She sprinted to his side’ is much stronger. This type of adverb is often used to hedge a statement. The hedged phrase, ‘The room was fairly dark and cramped’ can be simplified as ‘the room was dark and cramped’ or, even better, ‘shadows filled the cramped room.’ The worst –ly adverbs tend to be used: in dialogue tags, she said meekly; as intensity words – extremely, terribly, happily; or to describe actions – I raised my sword and he suddenly stopped.
Which segues to my second reason for despising the word ‘suddenly’. Using it is telling me what’s happening instead of using words to show me. ‘I raised my sword and he stopped mid-stride’ shows me an image of how he stopped. He could have also ‘screeched to halt’ or ‘skidded to a stop’ all three examples show us how he stopped and we understand that the stop was sudden. ‘Suddenly’ shows us nothing.
The third reason for my disdain for the word ‘suddenly’ is how it becomes meaningless when overused. I’m part of a book club that spawned out of my local writers group. We’ve been reading award-winning and highly-acclaimed novels to critique what about them works (or doesn’t). We look at structure, theme, language, dialogue, style, plot etc. Two of the books we’ve read this year were riddled with the word ‘suddenly’. I got so annoyed that I counted how many times it was used—in both books—the word ‘suddenly’ was used 32 times. Used that often, any jarring punch that should be associated with the word loses its impact. If every action or observation happens ‘suddenly’ then the value of the term is lost. Instead, that suddenness becomes commonplace and expected rather than rare and shocking.
There are stronger and more evocative words and phrases out there to express that sense of abruptness. It’s OK to use as many dreadful adverbs you like in your first draft. Use them as place-keepers but please edit them out for stronger words and phrases in your second draft. And, to stop me grunting at your book or story in disgust, make sure that you replace or delete all (or most) of your suddenly’s before you hit save on your final manuscript.
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