Hatrack River Writers Workshop: On Adverbs and Young Adult works

This is topic On Adverbs and Young Adult works in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
http://www.hatrack.com/ubb/writers/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=005264

Posted by KayTi (Member # 5137) on :

I am reading a fair amount of YA fiction these days, mostly in the fantasy and sci-fi genre, but more mainstream stuff too.

I'm noticing what I think is a trend/allowance/permission of somewhat extensive adverb use in YA works as compared with other contemporary popular fiction. Has anyone else noticed this? Am I imagining things? I'm reading some stuff originally published in the 80s so I know some is a style difference, but even with current works I see more adverb creep in the YA works.

Random made-up example:

Where we might normally suggest this as a "beat" at the end of a line of dialogue:

She said with a nervous laugh.

A YA version might read:

She giggled nervously.

While we could argue that the top choice is more "correct" (or, more accurately, more "current") - the bottom choice reads better for a couple of teenagers, doesn't it? They may occasionally have a nervous laugh, but more often they'll giggle, and since giggling doesn't automatically imply nervousness, the adverb helps tell you something about that giggle that is important in how you interpret the previous line of dialogue.

Any thoughts on this? Or am I trying to justify my horrible adverbitis that I have? (I blame it all on National Novel Writing Month, sometimes to get the words to come out I have to just give myself permission to use adverbs in every other line.)

Posted by luapc (Member # 2878) on :

For me, the YA version seems targeted more at a younger reader. The main reason for me is that the second uses "giggled", a more immature oriented word, where the first gives a more adult feeling, more serious maybe. That aside, I do think the second is a less serious read, so might appeal to a younger audience. In general, I'd say it's a matter of style and word choice as much as anything, and knowing your audience. I do think though that over usage, especially in dialog tags, would not be good for any age group other than very young readers.

Truthfully, I haven't read a YA story in a long time, so I can't really comment on the trend, but the issue with "ly" words goes beyond YA for me. I've often wondered why the use of "ly" words became considered so taboo, especially in sci-fi. I guess it's because it got overused so much that it became noticable. I mean, I can understand how quickly its usage became annoying, especially when used constantly in dialog attributions, as in this example, but I think its usage is still fine in a lot of cases.

My general rule is a few "ly" words are Ok, but if I write one in, and there seems to be a better way to write the same sentence without the "ly" word, then in edits, I'll change it. The main thing for me is not to overuse them, but I'm not afraid to use them at all, and I don't think anyone should be afraid to use a few here and there.

The one place it shouldn't ever be used, in my opinion, is in dialog attributions. The dialog itself should convey the meaning. This may not be true for YA, though. To use one as an attribution telegraphs that the author doesn't trust the reader to get the meaning of the dialog, but that might be exactly what's needed for younger readers today. Perhaps these readers don't want to think as much, or maybe it's just that the author thinks that. Either might be a reason why their use in YA is becoming more common.

Posted by snapper (Member # 7299) on :

I agree,

The two sentences are different. One being more mature than the other.
I do wonder if the prose does need to be different myself. I plan on writing a novel that is tailored to the YA market. I haven't read the Harry Potter novels, do they rely on a heavy use of adverbs?

Posted by annepin (Member # 5952) on :

Hm... I know this is just a random example, but I don't think the difference has anything to do with adverb use. They say completely different things. A more exact comparison might be:

She gave a nervous laugh.

She laughed nervously.

"Giggled" is entirely different from laughing. Of course, in the example above, you've really just replaced an adjective with an adverb.

Frankly, I haven't noticed a huge difference in how sentences are constructed in YA vs. non-YA. Sure, different verbs are used as appropriate to accurately convey what's going on, hence a difference in choice between "laugh" and "giggle."

Posted by TaleSpinner (Member # 5638) on :

I just did an unscientific comparison of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", Dan Brown's "DaVinci Code", Scalzi's "Old Man's War" and Fleming's "Goldfinger" which probably tells you more about my reading tastes than the question at hand.

They all use adverbs but sparingly. When they do use an adverb it's hard to see how to rewrite and eliminate the adverb without losing pace. I suspect that Scalzi and Fleming are slightly more sparing, devoting more words to the details of character, setting and action that eliminate adverbs, but I haven't the time to prove it with a scientific analysis. Maybe DVC and HP are meant to be read faster by people with shorter attention spans.

Cheers,
Pat