Episode 70: Affery’s Earth, Magical Realism Critique

Episode Description

In this episode, Leslie and Clark critique the opening pages of Sondra Turnbull's Affery’s Earth, an as yet unpublished magical realism novel. They discuss adverbs that end in ly, how to use adverbs to “unwrite” your sentences and make them stronger, the use of inanimate objects, and US vs. UK English. Contains some adult language.

 

 

 

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Show Notes

The adverb is versatile—capable of modifying verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, even complete sentences. It’s flexible—likely to appear before, after, or nowhere near the word it modifies. And yet, undeniably, the adverb is both the poor stepchild and the Rodney Dangerfield of the parts of speech, enduring the scorn of writers and critics alike.
— Richard Nordquist

The book Clark mentioned for the exercise in “unwriting” your sentences is Word Hero: A Fiendishly Clever Guide to Crafting the Lines that Get Laughs, Go Viral, and Live Forever by Jay Heinrichs.

Find out more about Clark’s courses here.

 

Inline Critique