During my writing today I ran into this phrase: "He cocked his head suspiciously," which I used to show the "he" was suspicious, not acting suspiciously. Well, it didn't look right and I knew the phrase implied that "he" was acting suspiciously. But did it work the way I wanted it to in context? This answer I needed, so I hopped on over to the forum of people-who-know-this-stuff and carefully typed out the question and example and then hovered the pointer over the "create thread" button. I ready my finger to click said button when reality slaps me in the face and says, "You doofus, the cocking of his head in context already says what you want without the word suspiciously!" I was SO glad I didn't hit that button. Have you ever had a moment like that?
I've had it the other way around, where I'll make a thread and realize afterwards I probably could've answered the question myself if I just did a bit of research
Hahaha! Know that you are not alone. I do it too. Often it happens because I just need to get the GRRrrrrr!!! version of the post out of my head so that I can continue on to a more reasoned response.
This is why I have a blog where I talk to myself -- to keep other people from having to hear it It's amazing how often, in explaining the problem to someone else, you explain the solution to yourself. Rubber duck writing!
I suppose in the example that you give, it depends a little on the context of the dialogue that was said. For as with most body languages, somebody cocking their head could take on a whole new meaning in a different context (puzzled, for example), therefore adding "suspiciously" disambiguates the feeling that you intend to portray. In such cases, I suppose it would be best to find a different expression to avoid confusion.
Heh, that's probably why I was struggling. The good news is in context it's pretty obvious what I'm trying to achieve .
You fools! THIS IS MY DEVIOUS PLAN ALL ALONG!!! To be fair, though, I kind of suck reading context behind a character’s action, so the cocking of the head for me could me anything from suspicion to confusion. As Dracon said, it also depends on the context of what’s happening, what they’re saying and doing. I’m still learning when it’s applicable to add adverbs given the context of a scene.
I was just about to complain to a friend about how I couldn't figure out how to tie both of the two main themes of my current project into the climax, and I got about one sentence in before the answer hit me. Then I realized that I've even already foreshadowed the solution My subconscious is much cleverer than I am.
Not quite, but there was a point a couple of months ago when I was thinking about opening a thread here to ask a question about...Scrivener maybe? Don't remember for sure, but I realized I should google it first, and Google led me to a thread on- -writingforums.org that answered my question exactly.
