I don't know when the war on adverbs started. I know it made me paranoid as hell for many years. During revision, I would weed out any and all adverbs until there wasn't a single -ly word to be found in the manuscript. It eventually polluted my ability to enjoy older fiction by the likes of Jim Thompson and Phil K. Dick. Holy shit, those guys used a lot of adverbs!
In recent years, I've backed off my own fear of adverbs. What it comes down to is this: How relevant is the action you're describing? If it's not terribly crucial to the plot, if it doesn't add some insight to the entire story, an occasional adverb isn't such a terrible thing. Of course, it's always better to be concrete, to say, instead of:
She balanced on one foot precariously.
Simply say:
She balanced on one foot.
If she's on one foot, we know it's a precarious situation.
If you're describing a character's attributes, it's always better to be specific rather than general, mostly to help illustrate the character for the reader. Thus:
Her face twitched nervously.
Should probably be:
The side of her lip looked as though someone had attached a fishing hook to it and yanked it upwards every other second or so.
BUT, if that twitch isn't so important to the rest of the story, if it's not going to reveal more about the character, then go ahead and use the abridged sentence.
The key to adverbs is like the key to just about everything else in life -- Moderation. Don't overdo it, but don't ban them from your work completely.
(I will do one more post in this series next week and that's it, I'm not giving away all the secrets!)
Hangmen Also Die
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The Resistance Banker
Operation Finale
The Conformist
Riphagen
Charlotte Gray
Hangmen Also Die
Operation Anthropoid
The Good German
Babylon Berlin
...
3 hours ago