: Re: Are using adverbs in dialogue/action tags a sign of bad writing? Examples from my own writing: She smiled kindly. “Maybe I can help you. What are you trying to find?”

@Si5022468

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As Kate said, over-using adverbs is never good, but they do tend to serve some strong sense when needed.
Some writers follow the no-adverbs attitude but it is OK to use one occasionally.
Usually there is a word describing the action and the adverb together for example "Said quietly" is quite similar to "whispered". And it's especially noticed the trivial actions of the characters such as "see", "walk", "say" and so on.
On your first example it was well written but about the second one I back Kate's opinion. There are a lot of places where the adverb could be replaced with some sort of explanation as you did on the second example.
They can be useful when placed in the right spot.

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