The light was harsh but the room was bare. Four bare concrete walls stuck together at right angles, sealed on top by a dirty ceiling with a fluorescent bulb and sealed on the bottom by a cold concrete floor that supported me, a table and two chairs: there was no access to freedom. One of the walls was adorned with a door that promised a way out if you were absolved of your crime, otherwise it was just an oversized food hatch that remained locked, with a guard stuck to it on the other side.

The air was damp, my skin was a colony of goosebumps and my breath was a white mist. I shivered in short spasms and my teeth chattered behind my closed lips.
I was cold.
I was scared.

I had been scared since I found that body on my sofa; since those uniformed "peace-keepers" had half-dragged my body into the mass of flashing lights outside my door and pushed it into one of the vehicles to which they were attached; since the cop that smelt of baked goods overwhelmed me with a torrent of loud questions and warm spittle, promising me many years of hard labour and friendly cell mates on some remote island if only I cooperated - because that would be letting me off easy.
Man, was I scared.

I couldn't explain the corpse on my couch - the circumstantial evidence that just happened to be chilling out in my lounge while I didn't know a thing. And how many years do you get for murder? Ah, yes... life. Nice. I wondered how many times I had laughed at the "everybody's innocent" joke and vowed never to do it again. Never again will I laugh at another man's misfortune. Ah, yes, and charity, more of that too; I mean, maybe that guy on the street corner really can't get a job like the rest of us. Oh, and more visits to the family, definitely more visits.
I just needed to get out of there, first.

They interrogated me but I had nothing to say. I only managed to repeat 'lawyer' till it became a chant. So they threw me into a cold room and locked the door. I waited. My only hope was the chance I'd be given to defend myself. Like the last piece of solid earth in an earthquake Charlie Richter would be proud of, I had to stand upon it, even if everything around me was crumbling to dust.

He appeared, Seth Boyer, my half-a-grand-per-half-hour lawyer, accompanied by one of the cops that had molested my wrists earlier. He sat down opposite me on the table, and the door was locked again.
'John, what the fuck happened?'
I shook my head; I had an urge to cry that I was trying to fight, but my eyes betrayed me.
'Seth, you gotta help me...'
'Of course, that's what I'm here for. But what the hell happened? You're all over the news, they're saying you murdered like four women.'
Four!?
'No, no, no, it was only one - and I didn't do it, of course.'
'On the news it said four.'
Must be a mistake, probably even some other guy, and they like to embellish on the news. I ignored it for now, I had a more pressing question.

I wiped the stray tears off my face and from the corners of my eyes. My hands felt cold against my face. I cleared my throat.
'Seth,' I said.
'Yes, John?'
'What day is it today?'
My lawyer adjusted his glasses at the nose pads, and looked me up and down as if he were searching for the source of an ailment.
'What do you mean "what day is it?"? What's the matter with you, John, tell me, what the he-'
'Seth, what day is it?'
He sighed, 'Saturday; it's Saturday, okay?'
It was Saturday, just as the cop had said.
That wasn't right.

'Seth,' I said.
'Yeah?'
'How can it be Saturday today when yesterday it was Tuesday?'
Seth shook his head, he seemed more frustrated than usual.
'John, have you been having any, er, "mind" trouble lately? I mean, has everything been alright "upstairs"?'
I had gone to bed on Tuesday night. Normally, you'd wake up next on Wednesday morning. But then, this situation was the furthest from normal I had ever been.
'Where's Diana?' I said to my lawyer who was looking at me like I needed special pills.
'How would I know?'
'You're my lawyer.'
He shook his head and adjusted his glasses again.
'We really should talk about your situation - tell me what happened...'

It was odd.
My wife hadn't shown up yet nor called my lawyer, though it had been several hours since I'd been arrested and it was all over the news. More incredible than that was her leaving me in a semi-comatose state without getting help or freaking out.
And what was with this guy?
'Seth, I need a phone call.'
'Well, isn't that great. But if you could just realise how much shit you're in right now, that would help me a lot.'
'I didn't do it.'
'Right. Of course not. But I'm gonna need more, John, more words.'

I explained how I woke up and found the cops at my door and a corpse on my couch. He seemed to doubt the credibility of my tale.
'You're saying that you slept through... three days and four nights without interruption and woke up to find yourself in all this mess?'
'Aren't you supposed to be on my side?'
'Alright, alright.' He sighed, 'I'm gonna go and do some investigating, find out what they have on you and try to find a way out of this mess.'
'And what happened to Diana,' I added.
'Right. And what happened to Diana.'
'I'm counting on you, Seth.'
'Yeah...'

He shook his head, picked up his briefcase and knocked on the door. The guard let him out and locked the door again.
Something definitely wasn't right.

In this long post, we continue our discussion on adverbs from where we left off in the last post.
We discussed adverbs that were verb qualifiers or describers; in this post, we shall discuss adverbs that act as qualifiers for adjectives and adverbs that impose upon verbs of dialogue attribution.

Adjective qualifiers - adjectives describe nouns, i.e. they reference a quality or characteristic, like "a big bone" or "a beautiful woman" (the words in bold are adjectives) - like verb qualifiers are often unnecessary and only add a layer of fluff to one's prose - perhaps even more so. Adjectives are already qualifiers, and if you need to qualify a qualifier even further, something must be wrong.

Sometimes, they are unnecessary, as in "the boy is quite tall" and "the headmaster is rather wicked". These are not only unnecessary but reduce the impact of the adjectives. They mess with the reader's image processing: how wicked is "rather wicked"? And how tall exactly is "quite tall"?

When I hear or read "tall" I know what that looks like, but when I hear "quite tall" I start to wonder how tall that is. I've met people ranging between 6'3 and 7'2 who might be considered tall ( if you're short the range might be wider), where does this boy fit? Better for you, if you want to drive your point home, to use a good simile ("as tall as a crane") or state the boys measurements ("the boy was one inch shy of seven feet").
When the adjective is abstract and already powerful, the effect is even worse: "the headmaster is wicked" is all the wickedness you need - plenty more than "rather wicked", believe me.

Other times, the adjective qualifier is absurd, and should not be used. Phrases such as "quite dead" and "very true" in which the adjective is absolute are illiterate; avoid them.

Now, the aforementioned are bad additions to any prose (perhaps with some exceptions), but they have nothing on adverbs used to describe verbs of dialogue attribution, nothing at all. And what is a verb of dialogue attribution?
It is a verb that is used to attribute dialogue to a certain person, that is, it shows which person said what. Examples (in bold) are "'I love you,' Molly whispered" and "'I love you too,' he said" and "'stand back,' the man shouted." The quotes show that someone has said what is between the quotes, and the verbs in bold show us who said them and perhaps how.

The use of adverbs on verbs and even adjectives in prose is usually forgiven; after all, the most experienced and most successful writers still slip up and use them - they're only human - and these words are such a part of our everyday speech that an inattentive peruser won't even notice them. And a good story and overall good writing will help people get through the less tasty parts of your prose.

Adverbs in dialogue attribution, however, are adverbs that should be used once every never. Yes, do not use them except in rare, mitigating circumstances, then, when you revise your prose, remove them. Contemplate the following:

'I love you,' Molly whispered.
'I love you too,' he said.
'Stand back,' John shouted.

Straightforward, right? Now look at these:

'I love you,' Molly whispered affectionately.
'I love you too,' he said blandly.
'Stand back,' John shouted menacingly.

Not so good, I'm sure you'll agree.
The additions in the second set of sentences are adverbs qualifying the verbs of dialogue attribution, and are as evil as you imagined them to be. See how they yank you out of a tense, dramatic moment into a partial reflection of what "affectionately" sounds like or how to sound "menacing"? See how they interrupt the flow of the prose?

In the above examples, any writer who should be let near writing tools should have built up enough of a character and enough of a mood to show how a certain person said something. It should be something that the reader is able to picture without the "aids" offered. Only handicapped writing needs such aids, and I don't advocate equal rights when it comes to prose.

The brain is an image-generating machine - words are automatically interpreted into a set of images based on experience, and all the images associated with that set are referenced as well - all in a matter of milliseconds (and that's how long it takes to put down your book). A person will automatically picture, when they read some dialogue, how it was said, what the person who said it is like and even more specific information depending on the circumstances - and that's without knowing anything about the person. Which is why you will hear people saying "you're not how I pictured" or "you don't look how you sound".
With all the berth at one's disposal in a novel to build a character and describe a situation, there is no need for condescending, distracting adverbs like the aforementioned.

Alternatives to these adverbs are sometimes used by sneaky writers who can't do without them - Stephen King uses the phrase "shooting the attribution verb full of steroids" to describe the phenomenon:

'I love you,' Molly gasped.
'Stand back,' he growled.
'You bastard!' John jerked out.

Stay away from these.
Seriously: stay away.

The best verb for dialogue attribution is "say/said" and other conjugations of this nice little verb. Simple, obtrusive... clear, and it doesn't fiddle with my double-take button.

Don't be afraid that your readers won't understand you; that is, eliminate that fear. Either you're afraid because you haven't done enough ground work on the character, mood and situation surrounding the scene, or you're afraid because you're underestimating people who read books. For the former, go back and rewrite or modify your prose. For the latter, stop it - readers are intelligent people, I give you my word.

I've said enough on this topic to be able to sleep easy at night, and I'll end by leaving you with a quote from Mr. King:

"To write adverbs is human, to write he said or she said is divine."

Be divine.

I woke up coughing, like something had gotten itself stuck in my throat while I was asleep. By reflex, my throat closed and opened and whatever it was disappeared into my stomach. The clock on the wall ahead told me it was time to get ready for work, so I swung my legs over the side of the bed, pushed up off it and made my way to the bathroom to wash away the last remnants of sleep clinging to my eyes.

Continuing from my last post on the passive voice, another part of grammar that deserves a mention is the adverb. It is worth noting that there is an intercontinental difference in the way the adverb is treated, between the English and the Americans. For the English, the adverb is part of everyday speech and prose, and much less of an issue. For their cousins in the United States however, it is an apparition of sorts.

Before you could say, 'what's today's date?' 2008 was gone like a bow from an arrow; now you see it now you don't. 2008 brought with it the most unsettling occurrence for a long time - the downfall of the global economy. Now that 2008 is gone, it has left the rest to 2009; we shall see how it fares.

Corset is a short story I'm writing especially for this blog. It's a short exercise in creativity for me as well as indulgence in the pleasure of story telling.