Experts can flout the rules. Herman Melville, for instance, ignores about every textbook guideline of prose-writing and yet manages to sound great.
Introductory courses on creative writing will admonish novices against using adverbs. So does Stephen King:
I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops. To put it another way, they’re like dandelions. If you have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day…fifty the day after that…and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions.
But Melville’s writing overflows with adverbs—one could hardly find a verb without a modifier attached to it.
It’s a similar story with adjectives. Patrick Kurp recommends using them sparingly:
I like adjectives, too, when they know their place. Young writers favor adjectives because it’s easy to generate them, and to the naïve they lend a “poetic” sheen to mere prose. […] Such writers like to appear sensitive and artful, but their adjective-dense sentences leave precisely the opposite impression. Unless your last name is Burton or Browne, it’s probably best to avoid them or use them sparingly.
Let’s look at a random passage from Melville’s Encantadas:
The mound rose in the middle; a bare heap of finest sand, like that unverdured heap found at the bottom of an hour-glass run-out. At its head stood the cross of withered sticks; the dry, peeled bark still fraying from it, its transverse limb tied up with rope, and forlornly adroop in the silent air.
Hunilla was partly prostate upon the grave; her dark head bowed, and lost in her long, loosened Indian hair, her hands extended to the cross-foot, with a little brass crucifix clasped between; a crucifix worn featureless, like an ancient graven knocker long plied in vain. She did not see me, and I made no noise, but slid aside, and left the spot.
The passage is beautiful, yet chock-full of adjectives and adverbs. I tried editing them out, and it felt like butchering a baby. One can almost see Melville’s genius evaporating from the text:
The mound rose in the middle; a heap of sand, like the heap found at the bottom of an hour-glass run-out. At its head stood the cross of sticks; the bark still fraying from it, its transverse limb tied up with rope, and adroop in the air.
Hunilla was prostate upon the grave; her head bowed, and lost in her long hair, her hands extended to the cross-foot, with a crucifix clasped between; a crucifix worn featureless, like an knocker long plied in vain. She did not see me, and I made no noise, but slid aside, and left the spot.
Melville’s maximalism is liberating. Sure, my prose benefits from tight editing. But I can aspire to be as free on the page as Herman was. Perhaps one day.