Revision and adverbs.

Amongst other things, I revised the final chapter of my mediaeval novel set in Edward II's reign. I am now asking myself whether 'He laughed drunkenly,' or 'His drunken laughter rang out,' reads best. I chose the latter because I prefer to get rid of adverbs.

Revision

Recently, I mentioned that when I work on the final revision of a novel I get replace as many adverbs as possible with a strong verb.

Something else I check is how many times I write 'and'. It is amazing how often I use the word and how much stronger the prose is when I eliminate the word as often as possible.

And now, to get on in my garden having worked on my new novel, Monday's Child, the sequel to Sunday's Child a traditional Regency novel published as an e-book by MuseItUp Publishing.

Adverbs

I am searching for ways in which to improve the sequel to Sunday's Child, Monday's Child, which I am writing.

One of the things I check when I read through each chapter is my use of adverbs. A strong verb is more effective than a weak verb plus and adverb. For example I wrote: the colonel walked quickly and replaced it with the colonel marched.

When I write the first draft of a chapter I'm in a hurry to get on with the story. Afterwards I fine tune it several times. Another example is: he held her hand tightly which I replaced with he gripped her hand.