I'm trying to review a book of one of my friends, but there's one thing that's driving me crazy in her writing. I don't normally notice adverbs when reading, but in her work they deffinately caught my attention. Just on the first page she used ten adverbs to describe how something was done. My question to you is: Is this just me being nitpicky or do you find this annoying as well?
An excess of adverbs and adjectives is known as "purple prose" and is generally considered bad writing. If you have 10 on a page alone, then that's probably venturing into purple territory.
It is possible to have a lot of description in writing and have it not be purple, but this writing comes across as effortless. You don't notice the adverbs and adjectives because they're used well, and once you start noticing the description then it strays into bad writing.
In my opinion, you're not being overly nit-picky. If you want, you can get them to come on YWS and get her to post the beginning of her story. Then they'll get reviews on the actual work and hopefully tips on how to improve.
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo
Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.
Some of the best advice I ever got on my writing was to avoid adverbs like the plague. A lot of description can be done just as (and more) effectively without the use of a lot of adverbs. I still use some, but certainly ten per page is like Rosey suggested: venturing into purple prose territory.
You could suggest to your friend in the way that one would give a review on here that it would be a good idea for her to cut some of the adverbs, or do as Rosey suggested and get her to join the site!
The way I see it, anything that draws your attention away from the story trying to be told is a big no-no. Reading a book or a novel is supposed to be an immersive experience where your mind can sink into the pages and get lost in the fictional world. Anything that breaks the reader's concentration, whether it's bad grammer, bad spelling, or accessive use of adverbs, is something that has to be dealt with. It's like in video games when you're charging down a hallway shooting bad guys in a heart-pounding environment when suddenly you see one of the AI units clipping through a wall or getting stuck on the edge of an object. It breaks the player's immersion and suddenly they're not paying attention to the action that's happening around them, and in most cases that's when they get shot in the head.
As a rule of thumb, if you think something is wrong with a certain piece of writing, then chances are it is wrong and needs to be fixed.
Chicken <-- Egg <-- Rocket Powered Fist Take that, science!
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