Was (Not Was)
No, not the well-regarded 80s band led by producer Don Was. Was (along with is, are, were) is a double-edged sword for writers. Why? Used in action verbs, it blunts to impact of a sentence. And used as the verb itself, it’s passive voice. If you listen to hundreds of writing experts and “experts,” passive voice is to be avoided like cliches. Or like the plague, which is also a cliche.
Not all passive voice is bad. But a writer should use it sparingly. A lot of times, I’ll end up flipping a sentence around to get rid of it. It’s best left to description. Action? That’s a little different. You have to read each and every instance of was/is/are/were followed by an -ing. Nine times out of ten, you can shorten it to the actual verb.
“He was walking toward the park…” Now, if he’s going to be interrupted in the act of walking to the park, this makes sense. Or if another character intercepts him while he’s walking to the park (like I just wrote here), the a “was” and an “-ing” makes sense. If he’s getting from point A to point B and ends up in the park before anything happens, then “He walked toward the park…” is better.
Was takes the immediacy away. Do that, and you also take the reader interest away. A lot of editors brag about cutting. (And sometimes, a less-skilled editor cuts just to cut. That’s when it becomes about the editor. If you’re a freelance editor, Stop that!) But a good rule of thumb is to look for any fat you can trim. “Was/Is” makes a great shorthand to get rid of a lot of fat and punch up the prose. And while passive voice will show up in everything we write, less is always more.
Next week, I will talk about a rule about prepositions up with which I will not put!
