Unpopular opinion: My writing group leader was dead wrong about cutting every adverb

I've been in this creative writing group for about 8 months now, and the leader kept pushing this hard rule that adverbs are the enemy of good prose. He said things like "Stephen King never says 'he said softly,' he shows the character whispering." So I spent 3 months ripping every -ly word out of my short story drafts. But last week I submitted a piece to a small contest and got feedback from the judge who said one of my stronger choices was using "carefully" in a scene where a character handles an old photograph. She pointed out that sometimes the right adverb adds a layer that showing takes too long to get to. Now I'm wondering - has anyone else found that strict writing rules from group leaders don't always hold up when you actually submit work?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_robin6d ago

Yeah I bet that guy also tells people to never start a sentence with "and" or "but" because his 5th grade teacher said so. Sometimes rules are just training wheels that need to come off when you actually know what you're doing.

the_robin6d ago

This is one of those rules that gets passed around like gospel but people always take it too far. The trick with adverbs isn't to cut them all, it's to know which ones are doing real work and which ones are just filling space. A "carefully" or a "softly" can actually carry a lot of weight in the right spot without needing three extra sentences to show the same thing. Writing groups are great but sometimes leaders forget that their personal pet rules aren't the same as actual professional standards. It sounds like your gut was telling you something was off about the hardline approach and the contest judge just confirmed it.