Of Adverbs

I am officially writing this post because I'm putting off working on my summer project - Summer Novel Writing Month (SuNoWriMo). Now you know.

Adverb - a word or phrase that modifies or qualifies an adjective, verb, or other adverb or a word-group, expressing a relation of place, time, circumstance, manner, cause, degree, etc. (e.g., gently, quite, then, there).

In creative writing, adverbs are often condemned as telling, not showing, and being a lazy way of communicating what you could better describe and give the reader a more vivid mental picture. I agree, in principle. Showing is better than telling. Can you imagine, though, if EVERYTHING were shown? If there were a scene in which the characters have to somehow manage exposition of everything going on around them? That would get really, really old. Sometimes, you just have to say Jane was angry instead of getting into Jane crinkled her brow and glared from beneath it, crossing her arms and stomping a foot at the boys who had been irritating her.

If I may quote the pirate of the rings on this...what is the purpose of a novel except to TELL a story?

Okay, fine, I'm going now. I'm opening Microsoft Word. Really.