Creative Tools & Grammar Essentials

There Are More Adverbs Than You Think…

Typically we think of adverbs as words that end in an “ly.” For example, “Dave ran to the store quickly.” Adverbs are words that modify verbs, after all, and most words that modify verbs are words like “quickly,” “exhaustedly,” “furiously.” But adverbs are much broader than that.

If I said “Dave got there fast,” then “fast” is an adverb. It modifies the phrasel verb “got there.” Adverbs that are one syllable and can have a suffix attached to them are called Flat Adverbs.

Adverbs modify verbs, but they can also modify adjectives and other adverbs. An example of this would be: “Sarah’s dog is quite silly,” or “The receptionist coughed extremely loud.”

The word “quite” and “extremely” are called a degree adverb, and measures levels. Other degree adverbs include:

• Slightly
• Moderately
• Fairly
• Totally
• Very

Prepositions, too, can modify verbs. These are called prepositional phrases. An example would be this sentence: “Dave ran in the house.”

The prepositional phrase, “in the house” modifies the location of where Dave ran. For you see, when adverbs modify verbs, they change one of three things: the how, the where, and the when. In the example sentence, the adverb modified the where. But it could also change the other two elements, like in these sentences: “Dave ran at 10 AM,” and “Dave ran with a skip in his step.”

Knowing all the types of adverbs that are out there will allow you to spot them easier in your writing and in other people’s. You’ll have the ability to create whichever version you desire, or to strip your sentence of all types of advebs entirely.

Sensory Words

There’s an important component to writing that makes the scenes come alive: sensory words. They are vivid and transmit the actual sense the character is feeling into your brain. Below are some example sensory words I’ve gathered and organized into a helpful chart: noun, verb, adjective, and adverb, each filtered through the five senses. Upon looking at each word, let it conjure itself into your mind. And if you think of more sensory words, create a chart of your own to use in your writing practice!

Touch & Temperature

Sight

Taste

Sound

Smell