Like my friend and new media mentor, Sree Sreenivasan, I'm using this blog as a repository for cool things I find online and that I think will help writers. Here are two items for the Mechanic:
Gina Trapani's "ly detector" which helps root out adverbs whose presence often betray the weakness of the verb they're modifying. And the re-tooled code Gina inspired, Paul Ford's "The Passivator." Like the "ly detector," Ford uses color to highlight passive verbs as well as adverbial offenders. Casey Frechette of Poynter's NewsU staff has created some terrific revision tools in our free online course, "Get Me Rewrite: The Craft of Revision."
When it comes to verbs, I keep in mind George Orwell's ban: "Never use the passive where you can use the active."
As for adverbs, my favorite and most memorable put-down of the adverb remains one uttered by Kevin Spacey in the 1995 plague movie, "Outbreak." Encouraged by his boss, Dustin Hoffman, to add "alarmingly" to a status report, Spacey refuses:
"It's an adverb. It's a lazy tool of a weak mind."
That dig aside, avoid an all-or-nothing approach to grammar and style. The adverbs can also be a hard-working tool of a lyrical mind.
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