In the graph above, Marlowe detected some of your favorite adverbs and the number of times they occur in your manuscript. The shaded areas represent how often the word appears in bestselling titles. 

Let’s be clear: Not all adverbs should be avoided in a well-written work. However, there is often a better alternative. In On Writing, Stephen King reminds us that “the road to hell is paved with adverbs.” In The Elements of Style, Strunk and White observed that “qualifiers are the leeches that infest the pond of prose and suck the life from words.” 

Watch for adverbs that creep into your text such as “really,” “very,” “nearly,” “quickly,” and “suddenly,” to name a few. When something unexpected happens in a scene, you don’t need to qualify it — just let it play out.

We suggest that during the rewrite process, you search on the most frequently used adverbs that Marlowe identified in the graph above and consider whether you can use a stronger verb instead.

For example, instead of she walked slowly, try: she strolled or tiptoed.

There  are no definitive rules for adverb use. Much depends on your genre and your particular writing style. It’s up to you to decide what works best for your story — and for your readers. But this chart is a good place to start in determining whether your adverbs are strengthening your writing or not.

It’s instructive to use SELECT COMPS (the purple button at the top of the graph) to see how often bestselling authors in your genre turn to adverbs.

Note: Words such as “when” can be used as an adverb, conjunction, or interrogative pronoun. In these instances, Marlowe is tallying up all of the word’s appearances in your manuscript.  

In the graph above, Marlowe detected some of your favorite adjectives and the number of times they occur in your manuscript. The shaded areas represent how often the word appears in bestselling titles.

Like adverbs, adjectives can also be abused through overuse. Too many adjectives, especially too many of the same old boring adjectives, can clutter your prose. Mark Twain advised in an 1880 letter: “When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them—then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.”

During the rewrite process, we suggest that you search your manuscript for the most frequently used adjectives that Marlowe identified and consider a variation — especially if it falls well outside the range of most bestsellers. 

Consider: Are you using more adjectives than necessary? Are you repeating the same adjectives over and over? Do the adjectives you use serve an important function? Do they convey powerful images that will help immerse the reader in your story? Do they evoke emotions or feelings? Remember to be judicious in your use of adjectives and make sure that every adjective you use is essential to what you are trying to accomplish in your work. 

It’s instructive to use the purple SELECT COMPS button at the top to see how often bestselling authors use certain adjectives.

As with adverbs, adjectives are not inherently examples of weak writing. The poet Adam Zagajewski calls them “indispensable” tools in depicting “the individuality of people and things.” Even Ernest Hemingway, known for the sparseness of his prose, used them, as in the famous opening of A Farewell to Arms:

In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterwards the road bare and white except for the leaves. 

Just keep in mind that adjectives gain the most weight when used with restraint. Too many adjectives, especially overuse of the same ones, can clutter your prose. 

Note: Some words, such as “other,” might be an adjective, adverb, noun, or pronoun, depending on its use. These may appear in the adverbs graph, the adjectives graph, or both.