My Analysis of 16 books: Stephen King is correct, the adverb is not your friend.

I had a busy weekend.

What was I doing, you ask? I was combing through the contents of my digital bookshelf looking at the words, especially adverbs, my favorite authors (and others) used and how often they used them. 

I was curious whether genre authors tended to use adverbs more than their literary brethren.

Caveat

Before I discuss the results gleaned from my weekend of wordy exploration let me emphasize two things.

a. So far I’ve only analyzed sixteen books of the millions that exist. Also, most of the books I analyzed were chosen because I love them. As a result, my sample set is profoundly skewed.

I hope to add more books to this analysis in the future and that should help to ease--though not eliminate--this problem.

b. As you probably guessed, I didn’t sit down and read all these books, a pencil in one hand, a pad of paper in the other! I wrote a program. Although I spent all weekend coding (my apologies for not posting on Saturday as I had promised) my program is woefully primitive. In order to get up and running in a relatively short period of time I’ve used approximations. 

For example, ideally no words used in dialogue would be part of this analysis. I tried to take them out but couldn’t make it work in the time I had. 

The Results: Adverbs

There’s so much we could talk about but to start things off, let’s talk about adverbs that end in ‘ly.’

Stephen King famously said in “On Writing” that, “The adverb is not your friend.” He even italicized it. 

King confesses to using adverbs. His admonition is to use them sparingly and with thoughtful deliberation.

But a mischievous part of me wondered: Does Stephen King heed his own advice? And, even if he does now, was he always as conscientious?

I won’t make you wait for an answer. He was.

Though King never used many adverbs to begin with, throughout the years, book after book, he has continued his war with the adverb, gradually diminishing its presence in his work. 

Here are the highlights of my analysis:

Adverb Variety

William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” has the greatest variety of adverbs, while Stephen King’s “Under The Dome” has the least.

Adverb Frequency

Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” narrowly beat out E.L. James’ “Fifty Shades of Grey” for the most adverbs used. Once again, Stephen King’s “Under The Dome,” had the fewest adverbs, though Lee Child’s “Never Go Back” came in a close second.

Only: the most used adverb

Hands down, “only” was the most used ‘ly’ adverb. (Of course, only isn’t just an adverb, it can also be used as an adjective or an informal conjunction.)

Further, the popularity of “only” isn’t just with genre authors. It was also the most common adverb in “Lord of the Flies” and “The Goldfinch.”

Of the 16 books I included in my analysis only three deviated from this pattern: 

E.L. James’ “Fifty Shades of Grey”

James Patterson’s “Along Came a Spider”

Jim Butcher’s “Storm Front”

For these books, “really” was the most common ‘ly’ adverb.

Really, Slowly, Suddenly

The second most common ‘ly’ adverb was “really.” This was true for eight of the sixteen books I looked at. Other popular choices were: 

- Probably (“Never Go Back,” by Lee Child, “Under The Dome,” by Stephen King), 

- Finally (“Along Came a Spider,” by James Patterson), 

- Suddenly (“Salem’s Lot,” by Stephen King),

Suddenly

“Suddenly” is one of the words we are often told not to use. Never. Ever. Which is why I was startled by what my analysis revealed. Six out of the sixteen books I looked at had “suddenly” as one of the most frequently used ‘ly’ adverbs: “A Wrinkle in Time,” “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” “It,” “Salem’s Lot,” “Twilight” and “Lord of the Flies.”

There is no question that “Lord of the Flies” is well written. Golding won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1984. My conclusion: it’s not so much which words are used as how the words are used. 

Don’t be a word snob!

It seems the pros use many of the words we’re told to stay away from. Yes, the pros use them sparingly, but these authors certainly haven’t eradicated them from their vocabulary. And neither should you! It isn’t what you have it’s how you use it.

Go easy on adverbs.

It seems Stephen King was right, the adverb is not your friend. One of the things which clearly separated “Twilight” and “Fifty Shades of Grey”—two books which are widely held up as examples of books that are poorly written—from the rest was adverb use. Perhaps adverbs are a bit like salt, or anchovies. A little goes a long way.

Today I’ve concentrated on what we might call weak words, words we’re often advised to steer clear of. Next time I’d like to focus on strong words, words (strong verbs) we’re encouraged to use. Do the pros use more strong words or, again, is it just a matter of how the words are used?

By the way, just in case you’re curious, I did analyze my own writing and, compared to Stephen King, I’m definitely (see that? I just (ack!) can’t help myself) an adverb lover.

Thanks for reading. Cheers!

Photo credit: "Over Looking The Coastline" by A Guy Taking Pictures under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Check Your Writing For Adverbs And Other Problem Words: MS Word Macros

Today I'm going to do something a bit different. I'm going to talk about how you can augment MS Word's ability to check grammar. Yes there are professional editing programs that do all this, and more, but sometimes you don't want to copy and paste your story into an online editor, especially if it's a 100,000 word novel!

Before I bought my new computer I had a macro for MS Word that highlighted "ly" adverbs, as well as other problem words, that clutter up your writing. For instance, "very", "that", "much".

I love the quotation, attributed to Mark Twain, "Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be."

Unfortunately, when I transfered my data over to my new computer I forgot my macros so they all went to the great macro heaven in the sky. Now keep them in Dropbox, lesson learnt.

This post has two parts. First, I'll show you the macros I use and then I'll go through how to use them in MS Word.

Let's get started!

The Macro: Finding "ly" Adverbs

The following macro will highlight all the "ly" words in your manuscript. I wanted to make it highlight the entire word, but at the moment it only highlights the "ly" part of it. Oh well, it works! The original macro, written by Subcortical over at Stackoverflow, can be found here: Microsoft Word Macro for highlighting multiple words.

Sub highlight_ly()
   Options.DefaultHighlightColorIndex = wdYellow
    Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
    Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
    Selection.Find.Replacement.Highlight = True
    With Selection.Find
        .Text = "ly"
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue
        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchSuffix = True
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False
    End With
    Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End Sub

Here's another macro that finds, and highlights, words that often serve only to clutter text. The original macro was written by Subcortical and can be found in the same article I linked to, above.

Sub highlight_targets()
  Dim range As range
  Dim i As Long
  Dim TargetList

  TargetList = Array("very", "that") ' put list of terms to find here

  For i = 0 To UBound(TargetList)

    Set range = ActiveDocument.range

    With range.Find
    .Text = TargetList(i)
    .Format = True
    .MatchCase = True
    .MatchWholeWord = True
    .MatchWildcards = False
    .MatchSoundsLike = False
    .MatchAllWordForms = False

    Do While .Execute(Forward:=True) = True
    range.HighlightColorIndex = wdTurquoise
    Loop
    End With
  Next
End Sub

Using the macros

I have MS Word 2007, so keep that in mind if you're using a different version.

1) Go into MS Word and click "View" on the ribbon.

2) On the far right of the ribbon you'll see MACROS. Click it.

3) A Macro dialog box pops up. Type in the macro name "highlight_ly" and click CREATE. This will bring you into the Microsoft Visual Basic editor.

4) Copy this text:

   Options.DefaultHighlightColorIndex = wdYellow
    Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
    Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
    Selection.Find.Replacement.Highlight = True
    With Selection.Find
        .Text = "ly"
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue
        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchSuffix = True
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False
    End With
    Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll

Now paste it between "Sub highlight_ly" and "End Sub".

5) Save the file (Crtl + S) and exit the Microsoft Visual Basic editor.

6) In MS Word repeat steps (1) and (2). This time instead of typing in a name and pressing the create button, select "highlight_ly" and press RUN. All the words ending in "ly" should be highlighted in yellow.

If you would like to also highlight words such as "this" and "that" repeat steps (1) through (6) only this time for the macro "highlight_targets". Note that the "highlight_targets" macro can be modified to include whatever words you'd like to highlight. All you have to do is include the words in the TargetList array.

I hope that's clear! (I can hear folks grumbling, "Yea, clear as mud!") If you have questions, do ask, and if there are any macros you'd like to share, please do!

Other articles you might like:
- Penelope Trunk: Blogging And Branding
- How To Design A Great Looking Book Cover
- The Best Way To Build A Writer's Platform Is To Write
- Aftermath Of The Department of Justice Lawsuit: Amazon Customers Getting Refunds

Links:
- Here's a great article on the passive voice from The University of North Carolina.

Photo credit: Catherinette Rings Steampunk.