Adverbs are for poets, high school lit mags and detective novels

When you need to make a statement, write for impact. 

Wintergreen determined the outcome by throwing all communications from General Peckem into the wastebasket. He found them too prolix. General Dreedle's views, expressed in less pretentious literary style, pleased ex-PFC Wintergreen and were sped along by him in zealous observance of regulations. General Dreedle was victorious by default… 
-- excerpted from Catch-22 by Joseph Heller  

Last week a tech company launched the Hemingway app. It uses an algorithm to turn crap writing into tight prose the way Papa would have wanted. The way Catch-22's ex-PFC Wintergreen would edit it. It's a fun idea, but you don't need an app to improve your writing. Consider these tips from The Red Team's style guide to keep your writing crisp, clear and effective (like a dry vodka martini).

Kill the adverbs. Stephen King nails this advice in On Writing, his scary-good nonfiction book that is one-part memoir, one-part best-writing-textbook-in-the-world. Adverbs are either redundant (She yawned sleepily) or irrelevant (Our team completely understands the requirement). Take them out and the meaning remains. Often, adverbs are just awkward (The hamburger dripped juicily down his hairy arm).  

Chop sentences. If you have six commas or seventy words in a single sentence, you are killing your reader. Break it up into bite-size thoughts.

Choose smaller words. Strunk and White hammer this point in The Elements of Style, your high school English teacher's favorite beach read. If clarity is your aim, and if your audience appreciates economy, then smaller power words are the arrows you want to draw from your vocab quiver. Use > utilize is the classic example. Now > currently > at the present time.

Simpler word choice is not dumbing down your work. We want to convey meaning. People subconsciously distrust bigger words, because they sense you are hiding something in the language. We've read enough bad writing (and we are not free of guilt ourselves) to know this is a fair suspicion. Bigger words can hide a truth the writer does not wish to reveal. Legal professionals disguise intent with big words. Idiots hide their ignorance. Put your audience at ease with plain and direct word choices.

Note: Audience matters. This advice won’t apply if you know a PhD is grading your paper.

Engage with Active Voice. Hollywood understands the power of active voice. Debbie Does Dallas is iconic. Could you remember a film called Dallas Is Done By Debbie? (Sure you would, but the title is awful.)

If screenwriters wrote in the passive voice, films would suck:

•   Hello must be said to my little friend!

•   The truth can't be handled by you!

•   Baby isn't put in the corner by anybody.

•   Frankly, my dear, a damn is not given by me.

•   An offer he can't refuse is gonna be made to him by me.

•  A bigger boat is going to be needed.

What ex-PFC Wintergreen knew--what Joseph Heller, Hemingway and many of the great 20th Century writers gave us--is the power of simplicity. Write with punch.