How come they get to use adverbs?

My publisher hates adverbs. For those of you who are writers, especially in the romance genre, there's a good chance yours feels the same way.

And they are right. Adverbs do make writing weaker. Think about the difference between "She quickly picked up her hairbrush from the dresser" vs "She snatched her hairbrush from the dresser." IMO, there is a night and day difference between the sense of action you get from the two sentences.

No one is saying you can never use them, but they must be used sparingly and perhaps only when there is no other option. With each editing pass, I try to take more and more of them out. If I tried to do it all at once, I'd drive myself nuts.

But don't you just hate it when great writers get to do what you can't. I was reading Vince Flynn the other day. Great writer, but adverbs everywhere. One day I hope to sell enough books that my adverbs won't matter all that much either. (Although I will still try to take them out because the editors are right.)