7 Simple Tips to Improve Your Wattpad Stories

#5 Murder Your Adjectives and Adverbs

Adjectives describe objects: red, green, round, tall, angry, crazy, perpendicular, odd, hairy, squirmy, etc.

Adverbs describe or modify actions: lazily, angrily, sleepily, moderately, adorably, quietly, ambiguously, amazedly, carefully, forcibly, etc.

As a rule of thumb, you should rarely use more than one adjective to describe something, and if you can do without it, then kill it!

At first, this sentence might seem acceptable:

The yellow sun was hidden behind white, fluffy clouds in the pale, blue, awe-inspiring sky.

There's nothing technically wrong with this, but let's remove the adjectives and consider the alternative:

The sun was hidden behind the clouds.

This sentence is shorter and easier to read, yet we don't seem to lose any description. That's because we already know that the sun is yellow! Clouds are almost always white and fluffy, and they're always in the sky!

Here's the key: only use adjectives when something is out of the ordinary.

The sun appeared green as it shimmered through the canopy of leaves.

The sun isn't usually green, so this sentence is intriguing.

What about adverbs?

Tristan tossed the ball perfectly into the basket.

"Yay!" the crowd cheered enthusiastically.

Again, "perfectly" and "enthusiastically" slow down the sentences and provide little information that's new. Since the ball made it into the basket, we know it was a close-to-perfect shot. When a crowd cheers, it's almost always enthusaistic.

Like the adjectives, adverbs are best used when they contradict the action.

The dog barked quietly.

The boy skipped lazily.

Both of these examples work because they add something new to the sentence while providing a more interesting picture in the readers mind.

Search your writing for unneccessary adjectives and adverbs, and kill them!