Aspiring science-fiction authors receive one piece of advice above all others: Forsake the adverb, the killer of prose. It's 1.________, 2.________, 3._________ important. But why?

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4._________, adverbs aren't bad in themselves. They're a part of speech, 5._________ no different than any other. Basically, an adverb modifies a verb or adjective to tell you how someone did something. The main problem is, 6._________, people tend to overuse adverbs. And they're the part of speech most likely to clutter your sentence 7.___________.

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So, let's look at a few ways in which adverbs can weaken your prose:

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1) They can be redundant. She crept 8.__________. He yelled 9._________. They ran 10.__________.

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2) They can weaken your verbs or prop up a weak verb. Look at the most famous adverb in science-fiction history: Captain Kirk's "To 11.________ go where no man has gone before." The verb is "go," which doesn't 12._______ tell us much in itself. From that, you might conclude that the adverb is necessary. But 13.__________, it's more that the verb is weak. "Go" just doesn't give us much, and it 14._________ doesn't have the swashbuckling feeling Captain Kirk's ringing voiceover demands. So, the best bet is to replace it with a stronger verb, like "venture," or "explore."

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3) You've 15._________ got an adjective, and an adverb is overkill. Think of the verb as the engine of your sentence, and the noun as the driver. Adjectives and adverbs are like extra bits of weight, slowing your momentum down. Most of the time, if your nouns and verbs are strong enough, you need few adjectives and even fewer adverbs. An adverb plus an adjective often indicates a 16._________ verb — I'm willing to bet if you're sticking in an adverb on top of an adjective, your verb is "to be," 17._______ including a passive construction.

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4) Speech tags. Most of the time, you can just use "he said" or "she said" without any fancy verb or modifier. These days, if you overuse substitutes for the verb "to say," like "he expostulated" or "she sputtered," then it makes your prose look a bit purple-ish. So, it's tempting to spice up "he said" with an adverb. Like "he said, 18._________" Or "she said 19.__________." But honestly, most of the time your dialog will speak for itself. If someone says, "We're all going to die!" we don't need to know that he said it 20._________, or — worst of all — 21.__________. If it's not clear how someone said something, then you can always describe her tone of voice, her body language, or what she did next. ("We're all going to die!" Fred yanked out tufts of his own hair.)

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5) The purple adverb. There are adverbs that don't just clutter your prose, or indicate a weak verb, they make your prose look more purple. "He smiled 22._______" is a good example of that. Another one I see in a lot of old novels is "He grinned 23.________." An entire generation of novelists thought that "24._________" was a word — and then it vanished, like an extinct species.

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But adverbs aren't 25.___________ all bad, and they can spruce up your writing if you use them 26.__________. Here's a test you should apply before using an adverb.

1) Does it change the word it modifies? Does it make the verb or adjective mean something 27.__________ different?

2) Does it convey some vital piece of information in a way that's better or more evocative than real description or a stronger verb by itself?

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Adapted from: Anders, C. J. (2010) Seriously, What's So Bad About Adverbs? Gizmodo. https://gizmodo.com/seriously-whats-so-bad-about-adverbs-5437610