On another blog post, I commented that sometimes the best way to give additional information is casually through an action sentence. The example I gave there was Her green eyes were friendly as she shook his hand. In this sentence, you have offered up her eye color as a modifier for something that matters in this instance. She’s shaking someone’s hand. Her eyes being friendly is an important detail. Adding the adjective of eye color is a good casual way to get that detail in. NOTE: This doesn’t mean toss in such details every chance you get. Also, if you have established that character detail before, don’t keep at it.
But the real thrust of this post is what can be a very common abuse of adjectives and adverbs. People don’t always know when to use such modifiers or when they’ll be pointless (at best) or silly (at worst). First, as a reminder. An adjective is something that modifies a noun or object. An adverb modifies a verb, and adjective, or another adverb. It is usually recognized by the addition of an -ly at the end of the word, but many adverbs don’t use -ly, so it is better to understand their function.
At their best, modifiers are used for more detail on the action or description. Her green eyes were large. One could just say her eyes were large. But now you have offered an additional detail. As stated above, don’t go nuts with the eye color through your story, unless it makes sense. Her green eyes complemented her red hair. If you just write Her eyes complemented…, the sentence doesn’t quite make sense. Here, the eye color adds more meaning, because green eyes and red hair go very well together. But let’s look an example that doesn’t make sense. My feet, in their brown penny loafers with tassels, kept stepping on the creaky part of every step. The type of shoe and other modifiers have zero to do with creaky steps. It is better to just say My feet kept stepping… If you really want to get shoe-type and color in, do it elsewhere. My brown penny loafers with their tassels gave me just the right business casual look I wanted. This sentence, as the person is dressing or looking in the mirror after dressing, is appropriate.
Do not overuse adjectives. It adds atmosphere and is part of world-building to offer details of many important things, and it can add enjoyment to have additional ones thrown in there or there, again if appropriate. But peppering every noun or object is overplaying your hand. Plus, the more you do it instinctively, compulsively, the more likely it is to use them incorrectly. And the more watered down the usage makes your story. Don’t lose your plot or your character growth in a horribly repetitive morass of unneeded adjectives.
Adverbs in their usage are usually even more ripe for compulsive use and abuse. He walked quickly across the room. Nothing wrong with that sentence on its own. It makes sense grammatically and descriptively. It is appropriate. But how about his: He walked quickly across the room and snapped up the keys, hurriedly heading to the door. He shut the door loudly and almost ran to the car. He’s in a hurry. We get it. Does literally every verb have to be modified in this sentence? Worse, will you do this sort of thing in every sentence? Because if so, I’m out. It’s too exhausting. But it can get even sillier. The green-eyed girl walked hungrily across the room. This is an actual sentence from a book. Her eye color has nothing whatsoever to do with what she is doing (walking). Moreover, her eye color has nothing to do with being hungry. But above all, how can a walk be hungrily done? It can’t. It’s a silly sentence construction, beginning to end. Yet a surprising number of writers do this. They use modifiers that are unimportant to the action being taken. They use modifiers that can’t actually describe the action. And many modify appallingly often.
The fact is, sometimes that cliché of less is more really is true. Especially if it avoids the more egregious abuses of modifying words. [For more information on overuse or misuse of modifiers, read my blog post Variety of Words Are Not Always a Good Thing.]
To that end, I want to leave you with an amusingly ridiculous example of the bad writing that can occur from not understanding modifying. It involves a favorite author of mine, Dan Brown. He is a good storyteller but a bad writer. And once one notices his mistakes (which are many) it becomes funny. Below is a link to a satirical piece about him, in which the writer mocks Brown’s bad writing habits, which include nearly everything I’ve said above and then some. Enjoy. Learn from it.