Elmore Leonard: Using adverbs is a mortal sin
1 Never open a book with weather. If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways than an Eskimo to describe ice and snow in his book Arctic Dreams, you can do all the weather reporting you want.
The rest live here http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-one
Always remember Rule Number 11: be prepared to break the rules.