The Problem with “Suddenly” (and all of his friends)

Hello, faithful readers. I’m pretty sick—and have been for a good week and a half. The last thing I want to be doing right now is taxing my brain, yet here I am writing a blog post because I feel guilty if I don’t churn out something once a week. (The thought of bloggers who post multiple times a day makes me feel worse than the girl who tells me she’s just run a marathon as I’m eating a cupcake mushed into a glass of milk.)

So today I want to talk about what I’m coining “sequence adverbs” and why you should avoid them at all costs—words like “suddenly,” “then,” “next,” “subsequently,” and—dare I say it?—“all of the sudden.” Barring the last cringe-worthy expression, these words do have their places in literature. Just not often.

Think about the word “suddenly.” Really think about it. Most things that happen suddenly normally elicit some kind of reaction, yet lazy writers throw a “suddenly” onto the action and move on without explaining why the thing happened and how the character feels about it. The trouble with “suddenly” is that it just describes that there was an interruption in the sequence of events, but it leaves out crucial reasons and reactions.

Words such as “next” are even worse. Most stories read from start to finish, so the reader already assumes that what happens in sentence 2 occurs after what happens in sentence 1. As an author, you don’t need to say “Susan went to the store. Next she went home.” The order is self-evident. For whatever reason, however, writers will pepper their writing with “next” and “then.” Sometimes it may be to create a transition. Other times it may be to vary sentence structure. Many times it is just because the writing is confusing and cannot operate without further explanation, which indicates poor writing, not the need for a “then.”

These words are not without merit, however. Just be sparing with them, and be sure that they are necessary before including them. Do this, and your writing will read much more smoothly and satisfyingly.