Spaces, The Final Frontier

Spaces, The Final Frontier

There seems to be some debate online and in the blogosphere about spacing after punctuation. I’ve talked about spacing before because I used to do it wrong and once in a while I catch myself double spacing. I have read articles arguing both single and double spacing after punctuation is correct. However, I found a vast majority that for manuscripts being submitted to literary agencies and publishers they want to see single spaces after punctuation. I have consulted with industry professionals and they all say single space only. Why is that? I’ve summed it up for you.

Back in the day when typewriters were the only form of typeset commonly used, all the letters took up the same amount of space, the typeset was visually ‘gappy.’ It didn’t matter if it was an i or a w or a , or . Thus to create a visual break a double space was used after all punctuation.

Today with the use of computers the industry standard for novels and general writing is a single space after punctuation. Now I know What people are going to say. “But I was taught to double space.” Yes, and so was I. Because those teaching learned double space. We teach what we learned ourselves. There is an air of stubbornness about this subject that is fascinating and odd. “It’s how I always did it, and I’m not stopping for anyone.” That’s fine, but if that level of stubbornness is displayed over something so minor (and easy to fix), the writer might be deemed inflexible and hard to work with and an agent or publisher might pass. While our books are our babies and we pour our heart and souls into them, I was given some golden advice from a trusted industry professional.

“If you are unwilling to change anything in your manuscript, edit or even revise to an agent or publishers request then traditional publishing may not be for you. Be flexible, willing to change, learn and grow. They know what they are doing and what will sell.”

I know it sounds harsh, but it’s true. How many times have I tolled over my manuscript? Changing things here and there, it can be an unending task. So why would I stop, submit to an agent or publisher and then say that it’s perfect and no I won’t change that paragraph, setting or the double spaces after punctuation? 

The benefits of single space:

The single space saves on space on the page. Seriously, in a book of 410 pages single spaced if I were to double space after just the periods it would add one full page, more if I were to do all punctuation. In this document there 5277 spaces removed when I went from double-spaced to single and ONLY after periods. Imagine how much more it would be if it were with all punctuation.

Honestly, when I found out I needed to reformat three completed 400+ page manuscripts to single space, I was floored and exasperated. Damn, that’s going to take forever! No, it isn’t. All I did was make a list of ending punctuation where a double space would follow. Such as:

Periods, commas, semicolons, colons, exclamation points, question marks, and quotation marks.

 “    ‘    ?     !     .     ;     :     )    &    @

(Use spaces before and after @ symbol except when it’s in an email.)

I then went to the find and replace feature(indicated by the red arrow below)

A box will pop up to “Find what:”  this is where I will type a period with two spaces after it then, enter a period in “Replace with:” with only one space after the period. I can then either “Find next and Replace” one by one or I can “Replace All.”

I merely repeated this for all punctuation.

These do not get spaces:

                                   Dashes         Wide-eyed. “I was going to-”  Ten-year-old
                                   Slashes         Either/or  This/that
Special Characters %  #  $         The #5 was actually $5.00.  10%  

The bottom line is if you want to double space go for it. It seriously only took me about a week to break myself of the double space habit. (I still do from time to time. Especially if I’m tired.) I have researched this subject on an off for a few years now (when it comes up), and I can say that the current majority says double space isn’t necessary or desired.

Now for a real kick in the pants, the newer generation is teaching themselves to write without spaces after punctuation at all. Why? Texting and laziness. I can just imagine all their English teachers cringing or pouring an extra glass of wine as they grind their eyes across their writing.

One article or blog will say one space others will be adamant it’s still two. I go by what the current professionals tell me, the ones working in the industry. Now if a teacher says to double space, then follow their instruction, but when an editor, publisher and professional writers all say single, I’ll follow their advice because I am sending my manuscript to them not my high school teacher from many moons ago.

My advice about spacing after punctuation

Single is industry standard. If you’re going to self-publish, then it’s up to you. If you’re looking at traditional publishing, conforming to that standard is necessary. P.S. that Search and Find feature is totally my favorite tool. Never use no-spaces after punctuation. Ever. Just don’t. It’s not natural to read without a space break between sentences. Single or double after punctuation is ultimately up to you, just be consistent.

Sheryl

Copyright © 2018 All rights reserved

https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/08/14/your-daily-word-prompt-natural-august-13th-2018/

Wrong Article With Set Expression – Grammar #6

If you missed a previous post on Grammar, simply click on the purple crossed-out title in the list below to see that post.

Within Grammar, here are the most common issues I had in my story:

1. Missing Article .
2. Redundant preposition .
3. Confused preposition .
4. Object instead of a subject pronoun .
5. Adjective instead of an adverb .
6. Wrong article with set expression
7. Incorrect use of progressive tense
8. Incorrect noun form

The wrong article with a set expression, this means that a set expression requires a definite article. Articles are words like an, a, the, his, my, our, very and each, as discussed in “Missing Article”. Instead of it is missing, in this case, the wrong one is being used.

Here are some generic examples:

Incorrect: A trouble is that I forgot what to do.
Correct: The trouble is that I forgot what to do.

Incorrect: Be ready to go at the moment’s notice.
Correct: Be ready to go at a moment’s notice.

I found a few of these in my draft. Honestly, I saw them before the program pointed them out. Wrong articles make the sentence choppy or flow weirdly. Some like “Pass time” and “Pass the time” did slip by my proofread, so I included that one for that reason.

Incorrect: Get that done by end of the day and I’ll give you a bonus.

Correct: Get that done by the end of the day and I’ll give you a bonus.

Incorrect: We were limited to what we could do to pass time.

Correct: We were limited to what we could do to pass the time.

In my head, I wrote ‘making the list’ and read it again as fine but once it was pointed out that it’s not grammatically correct I saw the difference.

Incorrect: I sat there making the list.

Correct: I sat there making a list.

The same thing happened with the next one, once it was pointed out I saw the problem. It’s narration so it’s important that it reads properly.

Incorrect: I took the moment to let that sink in.

Correct: I took a moment to let that sink in.

NOne of these errors were in any dialogue where I would expect to find them. I did have a fair number of the wrong article with a set expression’s, most were typos and easily caught. Some did a good job of hiding from me.

 

My advice about the wrong article with a set expression:

It’s not the end of the world to make mistakes. I actually found one of these in a printed published book. Everyone makes mistakes, it’s our job to minimize the number of them by finding and fixing them. 

-Sheryl

Copyright © 2018 All rights reserved

Adjective Instead Of An Adverb – Grammar #5

If you missed a previous post on Grammar, simply click on the purple crossed-out title in the list below to see that post.

Within Grammar here are the most common issues I had in my story:

1. Missing Article .
2. Redundant preposition .
3. Confused preposition .
4. Object instead of a subject pronoun .
5. Adjective instead of an adverb
6. Wrong article with set expression
7. Incorrect use of progressive tense
8. Incorrect noun form

 

Adjective instead of an adverb. I had a lot of these little beasts pop up, some are punctuation errors others are me simply being me.

Adjectives only modify nouns and pronouns.
Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. An adverb is needed if you are describing when, where, or how.

I know what you’re going to say Adverbs? Really didn’t Steven King say “The road to hell is paved with adverbs?” Yes, they are not to be used all the time, but some sentences and instances require them. Sometimes the sentence flow or message needs an adverb. While it’s good to limit (Severely limit) the use of them.

I’m totally okay with some Adverbs in dialogue because people use them in dialogue every day.

Now let’s look at my mistakes from my draft of Prophecy Ink.

In my head, fresh worked, however, it’s in narrative so perfect grammar is necessary. The correction does sound much better.

We ordered simple cups of freshly brewed coffee.

The following are four more examples from my draft along with the suggested changes.

I’ll break them down and show how I would change them if not the exact suggestion and why.

Incorrect “Good tell them if they see us to leave us alone.”

I didn’t want to change it to: “Well tell them if they see us to leave us alone.” That isn’t how this character would talk. I wanted her to say ‘good’ so in this case, it was a punctuation problem a simple comma fixed the problem.

Winner:  “Good, tell them if they see us to leave us alone.”

Here is the next example.

Incorrect “That explains why you woke frantic.”

Correct “That explains why you woke frantically.”

Now I don’t like the ‘correct’ version it doesn’t feel right, so I changed the sentence altogether.

Winner:  “That explains why you were frantic when you woke.”

Not great for reducing word count but this sounds and reads much better.

Incorrect I sat quiet the entire time.

Correct I sat quietly the entire time.

Now there is a grammar error for incorrect adverb placement so it will be changed to this:

Correct I sat the entire time quietly.

That second correction was perfect. It didn’t change the sentence meaning and is proper grammar.

Incorrect It was odd paired with cheese.

Correct It was oddly paired with cheese.

I don’t like either, to be honest. My original or the suggested correction. I think I may have taken this out entirely. But if I were to correct it, here it is.

Winner: It was an odd thing to pair with cheese.  

Revision can be tedious, but when I find a crap sentence and I can make it shine or simplify and correct it, I know it is making my story better.

My advice about Adjective instead of an adverb:

Sometimes one word needs to be changed, and it makes the sentence perfect. Sometimes it shows that the entire sentence is lackluster and could use a bit of polishing up. If I keep them it’s either in dialogue or absolutely necessary to the quality of the sentence. 

-Sheryl

Copyright © 2018 All rights reserved

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Object Instead Of A Subject Pronoun – Grammar #4

I know the title of this blog is a big mouthful. If you missed a previous post on Grammar, simply click on the purple crossed-out title in the list below to see that post.

Within Grammar here are the most common issues I had in my story:

1. Missing Articles .
2. Redundant preposition .
3. Confused preposition .
4. Object instead of a subject pronoun
5. Adjective instead of an adverb
6. Wrong article with set expression
7. Incorrect use of progressive tense
8. Incorrect noun form

 

Object instead of a subject pronoun. I guess I should start by explaining what this is. A subject personal pronoun such as; she, he, you, we, it, I and they. They are the subject of the sentence, clause subject or subject complement. The object(direct, indirect or the object of a preposition) of a sentence is; her, him, us, it, them, you and me. I think it’s easier to understand through examples. I think they are easy to spot and these are the ones that are often used in writing as ways a mother or teacher ‘nags’ a child.

Generic examples:

Incorrect Tony and me will attend the wedding.
Correct Tony and I will attend the wedding.

Incorrect The rule says that them are to be collected.
Correct The rule says that they are to be collected.

I only had one of these to use as an example from Prophecy Ink.

Here is where I always say to use a grammar program with caution. The grammar isn’t the issue here. it’s punctuation.

I would rewrite this sentence even though wondered is a ‘filter word’. If I allowed myself to keep this sentence it would look like this now:

Fresh guilt bubbled over as I wondered why me.

Without the filter, word wondered or wonder, which is overused in writing.

The words ‘why me’ repeated in my mind as fresh guilt bubbled over inside me.

When read aloud these are clear to see. Still, sometimes I mix them up, probably because I don’t have anyone nagging me about I versus me.

My advice about object instead of a subject pronoun:

It really is a mouthful for a tiny error. Look carefully before fixing it to make sure the sentence still makes sense. Don’t forget to watch out for those pesky filter words.

-Sheryl

Copyright © 2018 All rights reserved

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Confused Preposition – Grammar #3

As I edit and revise my writing I come across mistakes. Some are ones I know are simply typos and some are mistakes that I know are wrong but not why they’re wrong.  If you missed a previous post on Grammar, simply click on the purple crossed-out title in the list below to see that post.

Within Grammar here are the most common issues I had in my story:

1. Missing Article .
2.Redundant preposition .
3. Confused preposition
4. Object instead of a subject pronoun
5. Adjective instead of an adverb
6. Wrong article with set expression

7. Incorrect use of progressive tense
8. Incorrect noun form

 

In the last post, I featured Redundant preposition. In this post, I’m going to confuse things a bit with a confused proposition.

Confused prepositions are words that are incorrect in the context and though in the writer’s mind it may read just fine, the reader might be confused by what is trying to be expressed.

Here are two generic examples before I get to the ones I made in my draft.

Incorrect The store is in the far side of the street.
Correct The store is on the far side of the street.

Incorrect Anne ran in the hall to get away from Curt.
Correct Anne ran into the hall to get away from Curt.

Here are some I found. Now when I go through my draft I often find ‘grammar’ errors that point me toward a larger problem. Sometimes the error doesn’t need to be fixed, the entire sentence does.

This sentence is out of context. She is rubbing a painful mark on her arm. However, changing it to the ‘suggested’ correction of ‘on’ completely changes the sentence and now it wouldn’t fit in.  “I rubbed it through my shirt.” Now could be read as rubbing something literally through the shirt. I ended up changing this one altogether. ‘I rubbed my arm that is covered by my shirtsleeve.’

Incorrect I got up and looked out to the open office area.
Correct I got up and looked out at the open office area.

That makes sense so I kept the suggested correction. On to example number two.

Incorrect I was rolled to my back.
Correct I was rolled onto my back.

Again the correction made sense and so I kept it. Here is another:

Incorrect Years if I’m honest to myself.
Correct Years if I’m honest with myself.

I have no idea how I put ‘to’ there instead of ‘with’… I’m shaking my head on that one. Here is my last example:

Incorrect He gestured for me to walk with him around the crowd.
Correct He gestured for me to walk with him through the crowd.

The “correct” statement here is actually incorrect given what is actually happening. They are avoiding the crowd and walked around it. I did change this if only because the sentence is super awkward. Another moment of a grammar error pointing out a much larger problem. Around is actually the wrong word since around suggests they went around it but no destination was given so around and around they go for no purpose.

Winner: Karl gestured for me to follow him to avoid the crowd.

 

My advice about confused prepositions:

Nobody likes to be confused, especially in a sentence. Take the opportunity to look at an error more broadly and see if the problem isn’t just one word that needs to be fixed, how is the rest of the sentence?

-Sheryl

Copyright © 2018 All rights reserved

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Redundant Preposition – Grammar #2

Grammar is something I know I need help with. While I’m good, I’m not perfect. In my last post, I talked about Missing articles. Now I’ll talk about Redundant Preposition. If you missed a previous post on Grammar, simply click on the purple crossed-out title in the list below to see that post.

Within Grammar here are the most common issues I had in my story:

1. Missing Article . 
2. Redundant preposition
3. Confused preposition
4. Object instead of a subject pronoun
5. Adjective instead of an adverb
6. Wrong article with set expression
7. Incorrect use of progressive tense
8. Incorrect noun form

So I bet there is someone out there saying what the Bleepity-bleep is a Preposition? There are some that know what it is. Either way here is what it is for those that don’t know, and a reminder for those that do know.

Prepositions in writing are function words that show how a noun or a noun phrase relates to the sentence. They are words such as, on, after, since, or in. Two prepositions can be used in a row, for example, “From behind the bush” but most often a second preposition is totally unnecessary, “Alongside of the house.”

Here are some generic examples before I show you some redundant prepositions I plunked into my story.

Incorrect Everyone except from Tony ate spaghetti.
Correct Everyone except Tony ate spaghetti.

Incorrect The fish swam alongside of the boat.
Correct The fish swam alongside the boat.

Now here are two Redundant prepositions I found in my draft.

Incorrect I pulled at the white surgical tape.
Correct I pulled the white surgical tape.

For this one, I originally wanted to express that she was pulling on or at the tape. So I changed it to this. I pulled and picked at the white surgical tape.

Incorrect Mike ordered in pizza.
Correct Mike ordered pizza.

Now in this situation, I actually wanted to indicate the pizza was being ordered to the house. So I changed it to, Mike ordered pizza delivery.

My advice about redundant prepositions:

They happen, they also don’t belong. It was easy to remove them or restructure the sentence to make what I was trying to say more clear to the reader. 

-Sheryl

Copyright © 2018 All rights reserved

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Missing Articles – Grammar #1

Grammar. I have never professed that I’m a grammar expert. I’ve learned a lot since I started my journey with BiaAtlas. I’m still learning, and I’m sharing what I’ve learned. Some of it is a refresher, a revisit to the things I already know or once knew but forgot. With my draft of about 80000, I had 212 grammar issues. Most of which were typos.Contextual Spelling: 349
Grammer: 212
Punctuation: 999+ (Um that’s embarrassing)
Sentence Structure: 19
Style: 127
Vocabulary Enhancement: 267

Within Grammar here are the most common issues I had in my story:

1. Missing Article
2. Redundant preposition
3. Confused preposition
4. Object instead of a subject pronoun
5. Adjective instead of an adverb
6. Wrong article with set expression
7. Incorrect use of progressive tense
8. Incorrect noun form

There were more issues than the ones I’m listing. However, these were the most common and the ones I’ll post about.

First up is Missing Article. Articles are words such as a, an, or the. They are determiners; you can also use names, my, his, and our. Quantifiers such as ‘each’ and ‘every’ can also be used.

Incorrect I left glass on desk.
Correct I left a glass on the desk.
Correct I left the glass on a desk.
Correct I left Bob’s glass on his desk.
Correct I left my glass on her desk.

Okay so if I read a sentence aloud that is missing the article, it’s easy to find because it is missing… the article. Here are some examples from my book that I made.

Pain was the first thing that hit.

The Grammarly correction for this one is to add the article ‘the.’ The suggestion is totally fine by me, so I made that change.

The pain was the first thing that hit.

In my head, the next sentence sounds fine, but it is missing the article ‘a’ to be correct. When added it sounds much better.

It couldn’t be coincidence.

It couldn’t be a coincidence.

This one is dialogue. I give myself some wiggle room with conversation.

“Does it come with conversation?”

It is exactly what I want the character to say, and It doesn’t make sense to correct it by adding the article. “Does it come with a conversation?” or “Does it come with the conversation?” The only time I will ignore a grammar issue is if it’s in dialogue and that is how the character would talk. This practice is used carefully, for the most part, people in books should have good grammar, a reader will pick up on mistakes if they are too obvious. Sometimes I have a character that has a quirk, uses jargon or local dialect. Grammar checkers hate these character, and that’s okay. However, if all characters have bad grammar, the reader will not enjoy the story.

Most of the time a missing article is just me typing too fast.

Without hesitation, I asked for beer. 

Without hesitation, I asked for a beer. Or Without hesitation, I asked for the beer.

In this situation, I would use the article ‘a’ in this sentence.

This last sentence was edited out completely in the final draft and worked into a better sentence. However, if I were to keep it this is the fix:

He kept up pace with me. 

He kept up the pace with me.

Typos aside sometimes in my head the sentence sounds fine without the article. Sometimes it even sounds okay when I read it aloud. This is why I know I have to have help in some form of revision, whether its a program or another person.

My advice about missing articles:

Even if they sound okay to be missing grammar should always be perfect in the narrative. It’s okay in the dialogue, but use that with caution. An educated person would speak correctly in the eyes of the reader. 

-Sheryl

Copyright © 2018 All rights reserved

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His Unclear Antecedent – Style #1

Coming in at an error rate of 127 in my draft, next up for discussion is Style. To be fair the book is over 79000 words so it’s not like I have that many errors in comparison to say, 30000 words. Most of my errors are typo’s or me just getting ahead of my rapid fingers when writing. I tend to get the story down with the intention of going back and fixing things later. If I focus on writing perfectly as I write, I get frustrated or lose my thought. Contextual Spelling: 349
Grammer: 212
Punctuation: 999+ (Um that’s embarrassing)
Sentence Structure: 19
Style: 127
Vocabulary Enhancement: 267

Within STYLE are the following issues I found in my story:

1. Unclear Antecedent
2. Capitalization at the start of a sentence
3. Incorrect Spacing
4. Incorrect Spacing with punctuation
5. Incorrect verb form
6. Inflated Phrase
7. Wordiness
8. Nominalization

An unclear antecedent in writing is a word that refers to a  clause, phrase, sentence or another word.

In my case, it’s the referral of him, he, his, her, hers etc.

With Grammarly, it provides a box to the right with the ‘issue’ often with a suggestion on how to correct the error. Once the error is corrected this box will disappear. At the bottom there are two options, ignore (Because sometimes what I’ve written is what I want despite the ‘error’)

In case I need more information there is a handy ‘more’ tab that will explain what the problem is. It’s also good to have some examples if you’re not sure.

Now for some examples of my writing that needed some TLC in the style department.

Just ignore the fact that the next example is just horrible all around. This one has three unclear antecedent’s. They and they’re. In context, it is clear who I’m referring to, but I would make it more clear and fix this entirely since it sucks.
“I don’t need the second one. The company isn’t locking the system because they want me to snoop, and now they’re on the way.”

by replacing the first ‘they’ it became clear who I was referring to.

This was going to be hilarious. The pigeon pecked the man’s hand hard and he

By changing ‘his’ to ‘the man’s’ it gave a better referral to whose hand it is. In that example, I cant use a name since he is a stranger being observed from afar. His name will come up later.

The following is out of context. In this conversation, they are explicitly talking about the main character’s sister.

I actually ignored this since I don’t need to change it. This is why it’s important to think about what changes are being suggested and why there is an ‘ignore’ option to the Grammarly check.

If I were going to change it, this one is simple.

“No, I do not. I’m sorry, but this is hard. Close or not Anne was my sister.”

It’s easy to fix an unclear antecedent. This was the most common mistake I made in Style. A lot of them I ‘ignored’ because within dialogue it was clear who I was referring to, however by grammar standards it wasn’t clear on a sentence by sentence basis. Something horrible would happen if I corrected all of them for the sake of ‘rules’ I would have characters saying peoples names in every single sentence. I would have names in every sentence of narrative. That is annoying especially if within the conversation or paragraph I was already clear.

My advice about Unclear Antecedent:

Not easy to spot without a proofreader or program to find them. They are not all necessarily bad or actually unclear. Read and reread out loud before making these changes and always read the entire paragraph, conversation block or the sentence before and after to determine just how unclear it actually is.

-Sheryl

Copyright © 2018 All rights reserved

Rapid

Do Write An Emphatic Sentence – Sentence Structure#5

On my last 4 Sentence Structure posts, I showed how messy my Grammar is by Grammarly’s standards. This is the final part of the Sentence structure issues I faced with my first draft.  

Contextual Spelling: 349
Grammer: 212
Punctuation: 999+ (Um that’s embarrassing)
Sentence Structure: 19
Style: 127
Vocabulary Enhancement: 267

Here are some common sentence structure problems found. If you missed a previous post, you can click on the crossed out links here.
Incorrect word order  .
Missing Verb  .
Squinting Modifier  .
Incorrect Adverb Placement  .
Missing _____ in emphatic sentence

Missing _____ in emphatic sentence The ___ is the placeholder for a word that is suggested. I’ll be honest I didn’t know what this was when I first saw it. I did only see it once in my revision, so it didn’t stand out.

I’m not going to go into great detail on this since most people write emphatic sentences and don’t realize they are. I guess I’ll start by explaining what an emphatic sentence is. Emphatic in a sentence is to form a momentary emphasis in the story. To be clear and forceful. They are usually short, to the point and generally, do not need exclamation points. If the words matter the only punctuation needed is typically a period.

Emphatic sentences usually use a form of Do, does, did, will, what etc.

These are sentences that show:

Desperate actions: Stop, or she will drown. Light the fireworks now they’re getting rowdy.
Pointed or abrupt questions: Are you joking? Did you lie? (Unless in dialogue I’m not a fan of these)
Spontaneous action: The crowd did scream the moment TriX came on to the stage.
Intense commands: Stop what you’re doing. Do your homework now.
Tension: The car veered into the oncoming traffic. Do not pull the trigger.

The grammar checker wants me to change the sentence to: What one save was half a link. Which made no sense at all. I actually ended up removing this sentence altogether and working that information into another.

My advice about emphatic sentences: 

To convey emphatic keep the sentence short, and direct! It is tempting to use exclamation points. I’ve talked about this before! Limit their use and let the writing express the empathic sentence instead! Emphatic is not yelling! Don’t yell in the narrative! If the person is yelling, set it up, show it with words if you can. Geesh I must stop yelling! I will stop yelling. I did stop yelling.

-Sheryl

Copyright © 2018 All rights reserved

Abrupt

Incorrectly Placing Adverbs – Sentence Structure#4

Incorrectly Placing Adverbs 

On my last 3 posts, I showed how messy my Grammar is by Grammarly’s standards.

Contextual Spelling: 349
Grammer: 212
Punctuation: 999+ (Um that’s embarrassing)
Sentence Structure: 19
Style: 127
Vocabulary Enhancement: 267

Here are some common sentence structure problems found. If you missed a previous post you can click on the crossed out links here.
Incorrect word order  .
Missing Verb  .
Squinting Modifier  .
Incorrect Adverb Placement
Missing _____ in emphatic sentence

Incorrect Adverb Placement.

Oops, this only happened once in my draft. I know I’m not the only person in the world to do this so I won’t bother myself with being too embarrassed.

I’ll start with a refresher and elaborate on what an adverb is.

Adverbs are words that modify a verb, an adjective or another adverb. An adverb qualifies or modifies a verb and it tells us more about the verb.

(The man ran quickly).

Here are some examples. The adverb is in red and the verb that it modifies is in green.

• Anne speaks softly.
• Afterwards, she danced with Tony.
• Anne shops locally.

These sentences can work without the adverb in red, but they are better with a modifier that gives the verb a who, what, where, how description. Sure Anne shops. But to say shes shops locally gives her shopping more value.

Adjectives can also be modified by adverbs. However, most adjectives fall into the filter word category and are ‘boring’ here are some examples of adjectives and how I would fix them further

The verb in the sentence is meowed.

The cat meowed.

How did the cat meow? Add an adverb to the verb

The cat meowed loudly.

To give a ‘when’ to the sentence add another adverb…

Yesterday, The cat meowed loudly.

To add depth to the cat, add an adjective

Yesterday, The white cat meowed loudly.

White is boring, let’s beef it up. Now to add an adverb to modify the adjective

Yesterday, The soft white cat meowed loudly.

Last but not least to add an adverb modifying the adverb. This is a filter word and I would normally leave it out.

Yesterday, The soft white cat meowed very loudly.

I only had one Incorrect adverb placement from my book. Placing them incorrectly seems to be a typo or me just writing too fast. I would catch this on my “ing” search-and-destroy edit.

This one is an easy fix by simply reversing ringing repeatedly to repeatedly ringing. Now on a side note ringing is “ing-ing” and I would probably rewrite the sentence. Also, I could hear is more of a tell, not show.

I would rewrite this to:

The simple word justice repeatedly rang in my ears.
Or
The word justice repeatedly rang in my ears.

My advice about Incorrect adverb placement:

These are pretty easy to find if you read the sentence aloud or have someone else read it. They chop up the sentence or make them awkward to read. I still recommend having a professional or a program to help find them. The ones that are built into word processors are usually not enough.

-Sheryl

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