Blog, SoCS

SoCS – The Road to Hell

Maggie

Day 227

It is time to saunter on over to Linda Hill’s blog to do a little stream of consciousness writing.

The prompt? Well, Linda tells us:

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “adverb.” Start your post with any adverb and just run with it. Have fun!

Obviously, Stephen King would not approve of this prompt. To quote his book On Writing:

“I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops. To put it another way, they’re like dandelions. If you have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day… fifty the day after that… and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions. By then you see them for the weeds they really are, but by then it’s—GASP!!—too late.”

When I first read his book, I tried hard to keep the adverbs out of my path. Slowly, over the years, I have welcomed them back and have found that a field of dandelions is sometimes quite breathtaking.

Now, I am absolutely and positively not recommending you go overboard using adverbs even though they can be lovely. Remember, they can also be dastardly little creatures.

The English language is not necessarily easy and grammar rules can be very confusing. Did you notice that adverb did not end in ly? Then there is the conjunctive adverb which I tend to use frequently.

And what about the word adverbial? Tricky little word turned adjective on us.

No, I think Stephen King would be unhappy with this prompt, although he would possibly have used the adverb to scold us in some way.

Now my mind drifts to a mental picture of a road paved with adverbs. If I still had access to my Photoshop program, I would whip that graphic up very quickly. For now, you will just need to use your imagination.

Think you could have written a missive starting with an adverb? Why not pop over to Linda’s blog, read the rules and join in on the fun? We meet here every Saturday.

 

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24 thoughts on “SoCS – The Road to Hell”

  1. I have never followed any writing rules, and don’t intend to start now. But then I have never sold millions of books, nor te film rights to most of them, unlike Mr King. 🙂
    Best wishes, Pete.

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    1. When I was employed as a ghost blogger, I was required to run everything through Grammarly before publishing. I recognized then I may have forgotten an enormous amount of what I was taught in school.

      Now at 65, I think my brain deserves a little freedom from the rules although an editor might think differently,

      Glad you are sticking to your convictions, Pete. I love reading what you write.

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  3. LOL – Great take on the prompt. That’s funny, I thought of Stephen’s quote this morning too. I agree it takes a carefully balanced approach to win in writing.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I agree, Shelley. I enjoyed Stephen’s book so much, and that quote always stuck with me. I have learned to take the advice that serves me and then move on. I can’t argue with his success, though.

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  5. Stephen King has, indeed, taken a lot of guff for his hard stance on adverbs. I think they’re fine as long as they are not excessively used. Besides, I’m a blogger, not a professional writer, so it’s not like anyone really cares all that much.

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  7. Great take on the prompt, Maggie. I do like dandelions, so maybe adverbs aren’t so bad. There sure are a lot of them to choose from for something we shouldn’t use. Then again, you’ve seen my one-liner posts, so yo know how well I do with rules.

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  9. I adverb like whoa. I’m just very adverbly like that. Mind you, I don’t write fiction like that or write professionally like that, but I AM like that, verbally and writerly, very adverbial. 🙂

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