Nepenthe

"The other piece of advice I want to give you before moving on to the next level of the toolbox in this: The adverb is not your friend. "Adverbs, you will remember, ... are words that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. They're the ones that usually end in  -ly . Adverbs, like the passive voice, seem to have been created with the timid writer in mind. ... With adverbs, the writer usually tells us he or she is afraid he/she isn't expressing himself/herself clearly, that he or she is not getting the point or the picture across. "Consider the sentence  He closed the door firmly.  It's by no means a terrible sentence (at least it's got an active verb going for it), but ask yourself if  firmly  really has to be there. You can argue that it expresses a degree of difference between  He closed the door  and  He slammed the door,  and you'll get no argument from me . . . but what about context? What about all the enlightening (not to s...