Author Archives: James Scott Bell

About James Scott Bell

International Thriller Writers Award winner, #1 bestselling author of THRILLERS and BOOKS ON WRITING. Subscribe to JSB's NEWSLETTER.

News: Authors Guild Releases Model Contract Clauses Re: AI

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(Kay DiBianca is currently on hiatus)

Over at Authors Guild:

“The model clauses below cover important aspects of AI uses of author’s works: specifically, prohibiting AI use of an author’s work without the author’s consent; licensing specific AI uses as subsidiary rights with fair compensation; protecting audiobook and translation rights from AI uses without the author’s approval; and governing the author’s permissible use of AI in submitted manuscripts as well as the publisher’s use of AI in connection with the work. Authors and agents may request that publishers use any of these clauses, and publishers are free to adopt them.”

Re: Authors:

“Author shall disclose to Publisher if any AI-generated text is included in the submitted manuscript, and may not include more than [a de minimis/5%] AI-generated text.”

Re: Publishes:

The Authors Guild is concerned about reports that some publishing professionals are uploading manuscripts and authors’ personal information into public, consumer-facing AI systems for uses such as generating summaries, assessments, and marketing copy without permission from the authors or adequate guardrails to ensure that the manuscripts are not used by AI companies for training.

Uploading or inputting a copyrighted work or an author’s personal information into public, consumer-facing AI systems without permission may constitute a violation of the author’s copyright or right of privacy, and it puts the author’s intellectual property and personal information at risk. Editors, agents, and others in the industry who have access to authors’ works should not upload their manuscript to or otherwise prompt consumer-facing chatbots with any author’s works without first getting the author’s written permission. Further, where consumer-facing chatbots are used in workflows, publishers and other industry professionals should ensure that they opt out of having the work used for training. All of the common chatbots provide this option. Publishers should also take care that any internal AI systems are sandboxed models with guardrails to prevent the manuscripts or author information from being used as inputs for training.

Publisher shall not upload the Work or any of Author’s personal information to consumer-facing AI systems for purposes such as generating summaries, assessments, or marketing copy without written permission from the author or as otherwise agreed to hereunder; and when such permission is granted, it shall ensure that the manuscript is not used by third-party AI companies for training, such as by opting out of allowing training in user settings.

And:

To prevent injecting any AI-generated text into an author’s work, publishers should not use AI to substantively edit manuscripts, with the exception of basic spelling and grammar- checking applications.

Publisher agrees and warrants that it will not use AI to substantially edit a manuscript (excepting the use of basic spelling and grammar-checking applications).

In Defense of How-to-Write Books and Blogs

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Every now and again I hear some author putting down how-to-write books. “You can only learn to write by writing,” they’ll say. “Don’t waste your time studying writing. Write!”

Which strikes me as making as much sense as saying, “You can only learn to do brain surgery by doing brain surgery. Don’t waste your time studying brain surgery. Just cut open some heads!”

Excuse me if I show a preference for a sawbones who has studied under the tutelage of experienced surgeons.

The writer I know best—me—absolutely learned to write by reading how-to books. I had been fed the bunk that “writers are born, not made” while in college, and I bought it, in part because I got in a workshop with Raymond Carver and couldn’t do what he did. (I didn’t know at the time that there was more than one way to “do” fiction. Carver was a literary guy, and I wanted to write thrillers.)

Years went by with me believing that I didn’t have what it takes to be a successful writer. I added to society’s woes by becoming a lawyer.

When I finally decided I had to write, even if I never got published, I went after it the way Jack London went after inspiration—“with a club.” I started gobbling up books on writing. I joined the Writer’s Digest Book Club and read Writer’s Digest religiously (especially Lawrence Block’s fiction column). I also wrote every day. Living in L.A. it was required that I try screenwriting first, so I wrote four complete screenplays in one year, giving them to a film school friend, who patiently read them and told me they weren’t working. But he couldn’t tell me why.

Then one day I read a chapter in a book by the great writing teacher Jack Bickham. And I had an epiphany. Literally. Light bulbs and fireworks went off inside my head, and I finally got it. Or at least a big part of it.

So I wrote another screenplay, and that was the one that my friend liked. The next one I wrote got optioned, and the one after that got me into one of the top agencies in Hollywood.

Now, Hollywood is the only town where you can die of encouragement. My million-dollar payday did not come through, so I decided to try my hand at writing a novel. Amazingly, it sold. Then I got a five book contract, and I was on my way as a working novelist.

In great part because of something crucial I got from a how-to book.

And that’s the reason I’ve written how-to books of my own, and posts here at TKZ. I want to give new writers nuts-and-bolts that will help them construct saleable fiction. I am gratified when I hear from people who have sold books and given me partial credit. One of them is the wonderful Sarah Pekkanen, who gave me props (along with Stephen King and Donald Maass) a year before her debut novel came out. Today she’s the #1 New York Times bestselling author of fifteen solo and co-authored novels. (No, I’m not saying I’m responsible for her massive success, only that I and two others were there for her at the right time; her work ethic and talent did the rest.)

How did the writers of the past learn? Many of them had a great editor, like Max Perkins. Some had an older writer who read their stuff and suggested ways to make it better. Some, like the great writer-director Preston Sturges, learned from the how-to books available in his day. (In Sturges’s case, it was the books of Brander Matthews.)

So a good how-to book is like an editor or teacher. Is there not some value in that?

Now, it is quite true you can’t just read how-tos and get better. You have to have a certain felicity with sentences and the sound of fiction. That’s why the best writers were readers from a young age, piling up the sounds of great sentences in their heads. But they also had help learning the tools to make things better. And of course they had to write, and apply what they learned.

If you do that, the things that work become part of your writing “muscle memory.” Like a grooved golf swing. Then you can go out there and play to win. As Tom Sawyer says in Fiction Writing Demystified:

Writing fiction takes knowledge about basic storytelling. Again, some of us have an instinct for it. A feeling for it. But if you sense that you do not, don’t give up. Much of that part is craft, and it is learnable.

Behind me in my office is my shelf of writing books. I review them from time to time, reading the parts I highlighted. My philosophy has always been that if I can find even one thing in a how-to that helps me, that elevates my writing and makes it stronger, it’s worth the effort to find it.

Do you agree?

Quotable

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“If you’re good enough, like Picasso, you can put noses and breasts wherever you like. But first you have to know where they belong.” – Alice K. Turner, fiction editor, Playboy magazine, 1980 – 2000

 

Do Readers Care Who Writes the Book?

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

I listened to a podcast panel the other day, all about (can you guess?) Artificial Intelligence. It was a robust discussion of what AI means for writers and publishers, as has been covered several times here at TKZ and just about everywhere else in the known universe. The podcast and transcript can be found here.

One of the interviewees is a romance writer who openly admits utilizing AI generative tools to crank out her product. She released 200 romance novels last year, under 12 different pseudonyms. She sees this as a business, starting out each project by researching what tropes are selling, then interacting with LLMs to set up an outline. “I can then ask the system to generate the first draft for me.”

When asked if she reveals to readers that the books are largely AI, she said she does not. The one time she did she got 14,000 death threats. (A post about the darkness of human nature run amok may be inserted here.)

Anyway…the question came up about whether readers ultimately care how a book is produced. Well, 14,000 wackos seem to. But what about the sane? Journalist Derek Newton offered an answer:

I think the reaction that she received is probably good anecdotal evidence of what the market wants and expects. And my personal view is that a minimum, readers ought to have information about where their books come from….is this a purely human written piece, a work from the mind and spirit and soul of an author? Is it a mix up, a mash up? Did the author have an idea and use AI to put it together? Or is it something that Claude or ChatGPT banged out in 15, is it on the Amazon bookshelves fifteen minutes later? Those are very different things. And I think since we can know that, we should share that information with readers. Maybe some readers don’t care. Maybe they prefer AI. Maybe they only wanna read human stories. But I think the minimum standard ought to be we ought to tell people. And one more thing. She did mention in the interview that she discloses to Amazon. Amazon does ask that, but they don’t share that information, and they don’t have any way to verify it. So any author could simply say no or check the box. Oh, yeah. I didn’t use AI, and there’s nobody looking into that. So sharing it with Amazon may be true, but it really doesn’t add any value to the process or to readers. Readers don’t get that information, and there’s no way to know it’s true.

New York Times reporter Alexandra Alter said:

Yeah, I think it matters, when readers have the choice to decide, okay, I would love to read something written by a human, or I’m curious. Can AI write a good story? I’ll check this out. I think, you know, some might be curious and wanna read something generated by AI. But my impression from comments I’ve seen online and from my conversations with readers is that one of the things that draws people to books is the opportunity to connect with another human mind. And most people, like that human connection and would would opt for that, you know, given the choice.

On the other hand, a listener offered this comment:

We all need to accept that AI is a part of the future. Just like in the past, people had to accept the advances in technology. I believe there should be transparency about AI use, but I think the panel would be surprised to find out that most readers don’t really care if a book is written by AI or an author. Most readers are reading for enjoyment, not loyalty to a particular author.

Ah, as Hamlet might have muttered over his Kindle, that is the question. I don’t believe for a moment that most readers don’t really care if a book is written by AI. If a reader gets massive reading pleasure from a book, they’ll want to a) find more by this author; and b) get to know this author on a human level. When I read my first Bosch, I wanted to know all about Michael Connelly. I read more Bosch, and wanted to meet Michael Connelly…and did, at a book signing. That mattered to me.

And when I’ve done signings and people come up and tell me how much they love my books, there’s no greater feeling in the world. I extend my human touch via my Substack newsletter and, of course, right here at the Zone.

However (and I’m just spitballing here), maybe there is an exception in the romance world. Category romances have always been the largest market in the publishing ecosystem. Many of these are written under pseudonyms. Voracious romance readers go through them like candy. Perhaps for this market human agency is not a big deal.

What about everywhere else?

Let’s talk about it. Do you care about human authorship? Do you care if an entrepreneur uses AI to crank out hundreds of “entertaining” books, making real money on volume? If you read a book and liked it, then found out it was 90% AI generated, how would you feel?

Rejections and Successes

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

All writers get rejected. Well, almost all…there have been a few first-time-out successes (though often followed by a second-book failure, leading to another form of rejection: no new contract).

Many writers report on the rejection slips and letters they received, putting them in a pile, or in a file, or on a spike in the wall. Persistence and production is what mattered. The pulpsters would get their stories returned by SASE (quiz, kids: what does SASE mean? No Googling!) and put them in another envelope and send them out again.

There are some famous rejections in literary lore.

“It is impossible to sell animal stories.” (To George Orwell re: Animal Farm)

“We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias.” (To Stephen King re: Carrie)

“If you insist on re-writing this, get rid of that Indian stuff.” (To Tony Hillerman re: The Blessing Way)

I will add mine. I was going through some old file drawers the other day, and found it. My very first book proposal and my very first rejection letter! Now, this was for a nonfiction book, and I was truly wet behind the ears (i.e., just out of college). It was a form letter, which began with a warm “Dear Author.”

In answer to your present query, we are not interested in seeing this manuscript as we are not looking for this type of book on this subject matter at this time.

We appreciate your writing us about your manuscript and would be open to future queries about other books you are writing.

Sincerely,

The Editorial Staff

Hey, at least they appreciated me! And said they were open! (That they said this to every author they rejected was a thought that did occur to me.)

In that same file drawer, I found an even earlier letter, this one concerning a screenplay I had written as a film student in 1975. It was from Hal Barwood, whom I’d met when he was living in a house on the street I grew up on. He was the writer, with his partner Matthew Robbins, of Sugarland Express, Spielberg’s first feature film. And other successes. He’d invited me to send him my script, which I did. (I also found the script. Boy, was I not ready for prime time!).

He wrote me a very nice letter on Universal Studios letterhead, with some sage advice.

The idea underlying your story would make a charming and professionally workable premise for a TV movie. But what I think you have started to write is a stage play. There’s nothing wrong with that — much of the dialogue is very snappy — however, in the movies much of the storytelling should happen on the bench during the “time outs.”

He could have ended it there, but finished with this:

Don’t despair — anyone who can crank out engaging stories like this one should keep his nose to the grindstone.

That’s the kind of encouragement that can make all the difference to a young writer. When I finally put my nose to that grindstone thirteen years later, it would be another seven years before I started to sell.

Persistence and production.

Now let’s talk about successes. I was also going through my bookshelves clearing out space. Over the years I’ve collected bunches of Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen magazines. These I decided to donate. And then I just happened to look down at one of them, and this is what I saw:

Our own Elaine Viets got the cover for the debut of her new series! Boom! I’d call that a major score.

I’ll never forget the box of books I received when my first thriller was published. My book! In print! From a real publisher! I was on my way. It wasn’t always smooth sailing (is it ever?) but I stuck around. I’m still sticking.

So let’s take a stroll down Memory Lane. Do you remember your first rejection slip? (For you kids, rejection email.) How about your first success, however you define that? Let’s hear your stories. And keep producing and persisting. Carpe Typem!

Quotable

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In this space we’ll occasionally post a quote about writing for your consideration. Comments welcome.

“Anybody who can be deterred from writing should be….If I were on the proverbial desert island I would write things and attach them to the back of a Galapagos tortoise in hopes they would get out somewhere.” — Harlan Ellison

Dialogue Bloat

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

The skillful handling of dialogue is the fastest way to improve any manuscript. And the fastest way to improve dialogue is to get rid of bloat (unnecessary fat; words that don’t add anything except to slow things down).

When you cut bloat you tighten talk. Agents, editors, and readers notice this. It boosts their confidence in the writer.

One place where I often find bloat is in the beginning of a newbie’s manuscript. That’s because the author is anxious to feed expositional material to the reader, thinking the reader needs to know this to understand the setup of the story. Here is an example from the old Perry Mason show, circa 1958. A couple is in their compartment on a train:

HARRIET
I still wish I were going to Mexico with you instead of staying here in Los Angeles.

LAWRENCE
This trip’s going to be too dangerous, Harriet. It’s some of the most rugged terrain in the Sierra Madre mountains. It’s no place for a woman, especially my wife. It’s almost no place for an amateur archaeologist, either. Thanks for coming with me as far as Cole Grove station.

You see what’s happening? It’s an example of the writer shooting information to the viewers through expository dialogue. In fairness to the writer, that was done all the time in those old days of television.

But it’s death to dialogue if you do it in your opening pages.

Dialogue has to sound like it’s coming from one character to another, in a way that both fits the character and the moment.

The first thing to look out for is a character saying anything that both the characters already know.

In the above example, they both know they live in Los Angeles. They both know she’s his wife. They both know he’s an amateur archaeologist. They both know he’s going into the Sierra Madre mountains. And they both know they’re going as far as Cole Grove station.

Don’t do that, especially in the opening. But bloat can happen anywhere.

I was at a conference once mentoring some students. One of them turned in a manuscript with the following (used by permission). A woman (Betty) has been planting bombs to avenge the death of her son. She now has a forensic investigator (Kate, who has been closing in on her) tied up, and is threatening to kill her:

Betty looked down at Kate. The triumphant smile on her face faded into a snarl at the mention of her son’s death. “Why do you care?”

“Because if my son had died as a result of finding out about something terrible that had happened to him that I had kept hidden to protect him, I would want to blame the person responsible.” Kate thought she would try the empathy tactic. She did feel a great sorrow for Betty and her tragic story. She watched as Betty returned her statement with a hard stare.

Here in this tense moment, Kate has revealed to Betty facts about the case, but the dialogue sounds unnatural. The long line has information stuffed into it, and feels more like it’s for the reader’s benefit rather than the character’s.

I told the student to go back and cut all dialogue that is not absolutely true to the character and the emotional beats. What would either of them really say?

She came back later with the dialogue much improved. A tip: If you find a bloated section of dialogue and you think the reader absolutely needs the info, break it into short, tense exchanges. Turn information into confrontation.

In the Perry Mason example above, we could render in fiction like this:

“Let me come with you,” Harriet said.

“That part of Mexico’s too dangerous,” Lawrence said.

“It’s dangerous in L.A., too, if you haven’t noticed.”

Lawrence laughed and stroked her hair. “The Sierra Madres are no place for—”

“If you say a woman again I swear I’ll file for divorce.”

“Honey—”

“You’re an insurance salesman, not an archaeologist! The only rocks you should be looking at are in your head.”

“Now, now.” Lawrence looked out the window. “Here’s Cole Grove Station.”

“Don’t make me get off,” Harriet said.

“See you in two weeks,” Lawrence said.

Great dialogue keeps readers in the fictive dream. Bloat pulls them out of it.  So never have a character answer the door and say something like, “Oh, hello Arthur, my family doctor from Baltimore. Thanks for coming to my home here on Mockingbird Lane.”

Comments welcome.

What Makes a Successful Writer?

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

“It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.” – Robert Benchley.

What makes a successful writer these days? Is it money, fame, production, staying out of trouble (like the author whose book was pulled by a Big 5 publisher for using A.I. in the writing, or the author who asked ChatGPT to rewrite text in the style of a bestselling writer, then copied and pasted it in without removing the prompts)?

Is there even such a thing as a common definition of writerly success?

In the not-so-distant past, the answer was pretty simple: Success = published by a publishing house that gave you an advance, and you sold enough books to keep on publishing with the publishing house. In the 1990s, you could even score a crazy-high advance for your very first book, like this fellow.

Author Tasmina Perry describes that era:

It was the age of mega-deals, huge advances, long lunches, glossy author photos, and multi-book contracts that didn’t just pay the mortgage but paid it off. A time when a writer could, with a straight face, describe being an author as a solid, stable profession. Many writers really did live entirely off their novels. A lucky few even made fortunes.

However:

But that golden era was just that – a moment. A blip. A historically unusual spike in the long, wobbly line of author economics. The conditions that made it possible simply don’t really exist anymore. The industry reshaped itself faster than the mythology surrounding it, meaning many writers kept clinging to the old idea, the full-time author who earns a living from novels alone, long after the scaffolding had dissolved.

Because things ARE different now.

Attention is fragmented.
Retail is unpredictable.
Reading competes with scrolling, streaming, gaming.
Publishers take fewer risks.
Editors feel safer commissioning celebrity books.
Algorithms drive discovery more than posters at train stations.
A single viral BookTok can outmuscle a year of curated marketing, yet no one really understands how to make that viral magic happen.

This is the new reality of 21st-century publishing and it’s time we rewired our expectations.

And there’s this from Jane Friedman’s The Bottom Line (subscription required):

What might the traditional industry look like in 10 years?

This commentary by publishing-industry vet Paul Bogaards focuses on editors and acquisitions but also includes some sobering observations. He writes, “I could point to books that were acquired for seven figures but sold under 10,000 copies on BookScan . . . Also, the track of many brand-name authors is in decline. I could point to several (many) brand-name authors whose tracks are experiencing double-digit declines but will not, because, you know, it is what it is, but it being what it is doesn’t explain why it is, and that’s what makes it so unsettling when you think about what the industry might look like in 10 years.” It reminds me of the last Authors Guild survey that revealed top authors have been seeing a decline in their earnings.

Perry finds a silver lining:

We are not witnessing the death of the full-time author.
We are witnessing the death of a myth, and the rebirth of a new, more resilient, more expansive kind of writer.

Instead of betting our entire livelihoods on one book every year – which, when you say it out loud, is an absolutely bonkers business model – you can, and should, build something sturdier:

A portfolio career.
Multiple revenue streams.
Multiple creative outlets.
Multiple ways to reach readers.

Maybe the ‘career author’ is fading.
But the writer?
The writer is evolving.

Let’s go back to money as a measure. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with writing for money. Dr. Johnson famously said, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.” Over the top, as the good doctor was on occasion, we must admit we all like to see income from our output.

And if we create a desirable product (a good book) it’s a fair exchange for readers to pass us a little lettuce. But paradoxically, the chase after money alone often negatively impacts the quality of the writing.

That being so, maybe we need to hitch ourselves to a more stable definition of success, one that can survive the seas of change, no matter the size of our bank account.

In high school I attended the John Wooden Basketball Camp at UCLA. Wooden was at the apex of his career as the greatest basketball coach of all time. He had developed his famous “Pyramid of Success” and gave one to all of us. I have mine framed. His definition of success is as follows:

Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.

I like that. To it I would only add this, from author Michael Bishop: “One may achieve remarkable writerly success while flunking all the major criteria for success as a human being. Try not to do that.”

So how do you define success as a writer?

Chipping Away What Isn’t My Book

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

There’s an apocryphal story about a fellow admiring Michelangelo’s magnificent statue of David. He asks the artist how he produced something so divine. Michelangelo answers, “I looked at the block of marble and chipped away everything that was not David.”

That quote is so good I wish he’d actually said it. He did have a real zinger for the impatient Pope Julius II, while working on the Sistine Chapel. “When will you be finished?” shouted the pope. “When I am done,” Michelangelo replied. (Writers with a contract and a deadline may not be so cavalier with their quips.)

The art of sculpting blows me away. How can you make something so beautiful from a great big formless slab? How may slabs do you have to go through to get competent in your craft, where one errant stroke means disaster. With sculpture, you an add something back. How did Michelangelo do it? I mean, one false chip and David loses a nipple.

I thought of the David quote the other day as I was going over a hard copy of my WIP. I found myself doing a lot of this: taking out a word here, a phrase there, substituting one word for another. Chipping away, as it were, whatever wasn’t my book.

This is what I call polishing. It’s my last step before publishing.

My first draft is for getting the thing down. I don’t do heavy edits. I go over the previous day’s pages, correct obvious mistakes, make some quick changes, and then get on with it.

I let that draft sit for a couple of weeks, to get some distance, then make a hard copy and put it in a binder. For fun I put a mock cover on it with a fictitious blurb on how great it is.

Then I read it as if I were a harried acquisitions editor on a commuter train. I keep asking myself, Are there places where I’m tempted to put this book aside?

I put a big old checkmark √ in the margin, and read on. I don’t make detailed notes. In addition to the √ mark I use:

• parentheses ( ) around confusing sentences

• a circle O in the margin where I think material needs to be added

• a question mark ? for material I think is confusing

When I’m finished, I analyze, asking questions like:

• Does the story make sense?

• Are there any loose threads?

• Does the story flow or does it seem choppy?

• Do my main characters “jump off the page”?

• Are the stakes high enough?

• Is there enough of a “worry factor” for readers?

I make any major changes, then print out another draft. That goes to my first editor, the lovely Mrs. B, and a trusted beta reader. They give me valuable notes, because I always miss things on my own. I make the changes.

Then comes the polish. Here’s what I’m looking for:

Scene Openings

• Does the opening scene have a disturbance?

• Can I begin a scene a little further in?

• Do my descriptions do “double duty?” (visual and tone)

• Do many of the scenes begin the same way? Vary them.

Scene Endings

I’ve found that sometimes cutting the last lines or even paragraphs of a scene gives it more momentum. Or I may need:

 • a line of moody description

• an introspection of fear or worry

• a moment of decision or intention

• a line of dialogue that snaps

Dialogue

• Is there plenty of white space in the dialogue exchanges?

• Can I cut any words to make the dialogue tighter?

• Is there a line I can “curve” to make it more memorable?

[Note: More tips, and my Ultimate Revision Checklist may be found in Revision & Self-Editing for Publication.]

And that’s how I chip away at what isn’t my book. Are you a chipper? Do you have a standard revision plan you follow?

Let’s Talk Heartily About Adverbs

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

It’s almost a commandment among fiction writers: Cut the adverbs!

Sol Stein called adverbs a form of “flab” and advised cutting them all in a manuscript, then readmitting only “the necessary few after careful testing.”

Mr. King famously wrote: The road to hell is paved with adverbs. He did, however, add this:

I can be a good sport about adverbs, though. Yes I can. With one exception: dialogue attribution. I must insist that you use the adverb in dialogue attribution only in the rarest and most special occasions … and not even then, if you can avoid it.

I’m all for active verbs doing the work. Instead of He walked angrily out of the office the better choice is He stormed out of the office. 

I am also hostile to adverbs in dialogue attributions. An action beat or the context should show (not tell) how something is said.

Not:

“I’m going to rip your lungs out,” he said threateningly.

This:

He got in my face. “I’m going to rip your lungs out.”

All well and good. The other day, however, I wrote this in my WIP:

He nodded. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

I stopped, because what I saw in my mind wasn’t a mere nod. It was one of those exaggerated head bobs you do when you really (adverb!) agree with somebody. I paused and thought about how to “show” rather than “tell” this. But it seemed like overkill, as in:

His head bobbed up and down like an oil rig. 

This was not a moment “big” enough for something like that.

Finally, my fingers fighting me somewhat, I wrote:

He nodded heartily. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

This triggered my adverb alarm. I was about to change things again, but started asking some of the essential questions of our trade: Is this going to bother the reader? Is this a “speed bump” or “flab”? Or is it a simple and efficient way to paint the picture I saw in my head and give that to the reader without muss or fuss?

Such are the little things we writers brood about. (Note: I’m not of the ilk that believes the first way you write something is always the best way, the purest way, the way that should never be trifled with. That is an exceedingly misguided view, alarmingly facile, and I mean that most earnestly.)

My advice then is simply, engagingly, and precisely this: Use an adverb only when it does the job faster and more efficiently than any alternative.

Also: Give your readers the respect of a little brooding about your prose.

Do you think readers care? Or is all this talk about “brooding” just a waste of time?