This challenge was another great suggestion by M_A_ Granse, who said "The point of this challenge is to choose the wording with care, forcing the writer to find stronger nouns and verbs."

If you're not quite convinced this is a valuable endeavor, here's another anti-adverb quote by Mark Twain:

"Go through your drafts and try to delete as many adverbs as possible. The emphasis they add is often overkill."

Keep in mind that as the judges read through the submissions, we'll not only be lo ... more »

This challenge was another great suggestion by M_A_ Granse, who said "The point of this challenge is to choose the wording with care, forcing the writer to find stronger nouns and verbs."

If you're not quite convinced this is a valuable endeavor, here's another anti-adverb quote by Mark Twain:

"Go through your drafts and try to delete as many adverbs as possible. The emphasis they add is often overkill."

Keep in mind that as the judges read through the submissions, we'll not only be looking for a lack of adjectives and adverbs, but for a surplus of those strong nouns and verbs (think 'chomp' instead of 'bite').

UPDATE: There have been some questions about what criteria the judges will use to define an adjective and adverb. These are the definitions we will be using:

Adjective

1. The part of speech that modifies a noun or other substantive by limiting, qualifying, or specifying and distinguished in English morphologically by one of several suffixes, such as -able, -ous, -er, and -est, or syntactically by position directly preceding a noun or nominal phrase.
2. Any of the words belonging to this part of speech, such as white in the phrase a white house.

UPDATE #2: Authors have made some useful (and often amusing) comments that an adverb can be considered a broad, catch-all grammatical term. So we're taking hagenpiper's advice (everyone should try to read his submission before he changes it) and restricting our definition a bit more. We'll still use this basic definition:

Adverb:

1.The part of speech that modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb.
2. Any of the words belonging to this part of speech, such as so, very, and rapidly.

HOWEVER, this will only include adverbs of manner (usually ending in -ly), extent or degree (very, rather, always, only, ect), and number (one, two, twice, often, seldom, never). You CAN use adverbs relating to time (after, before, since), place (inside, outside, everywhere), affirmation or denial (yes, no, probably perhaps), and questions (how, why where).

If you're unsure about a word you want to use, we advise you to look it up in a dictionary and see what part of speech it is categorized under. Some words have multiple uses, so you might have to use your brain in conjunction with dictionary.com. Scary, we know, but we believe you can do it.

TO SUBMIT, START A NEW CHAPTER FOR THIS PROJECT. THE DEADLINE TO ENTER IS MONDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2010 at 4:00 pm.

The WEbook editorial staff will pick our 3 favorite submissions and award the authors free entry to PageToFame.

Note #1: WEbook does not take into account the user ratings when deciding who will win the challenge. We read each submission carefully, and decide the winners based on our own judgment.

Note #2: There is sometimes a word count discrepancy between MS Word and WEbook's word count editor, causing authors' entries to appear to go a few words over the limit. Don't worry about this! We are aware of the issue and a few extra words will not affect our consideration of your writing.

Note #3: Only one submission per person, please (you can, however, revise up until the deadline).  Less