I started a new novel today, the old one wasn't going anywhere. Lesson learned: I had way too many of a verb called "Was" Is there a way to decrease the number of "Was" in the narrative?
I suffer a similar problem, but with as. After the writing group finished the first 20ish pages, overall it felt like a maniac was dissecting me with spork in a grimy basement. Painful and necessary. If only I had not painted myself in a tight spot by going both present tense and first POV.
This is a good tip. Using simple past/present instead of -ing forms can make the writing feel a bit more urgent. What this thing with eliminating "was" comes from, though, is often people wanting to get rid of the passive voice. People seem to be utterly wank at explaining what the passive voice is, and pretending that any sentence with "was" or "were" frequently gets used as a really, really shit shorthand. If I sound mad at this advice, it's because I'm an English teacher, and I am mad. Who's told you this? A reader, a writer, or that godforsaken app "Hemmingway"? Writers love dispensing this advice because we see it posited time and time again as the death of prose and, on the surface, it looks like an easy fix. If you put a piece up for review somewhere and this was the main gist of your advice, I'd recommend giving that same piece to as many eyeballs as you can muster. The more readers than writers, the better, simply because we writers know how irritating it is to get a "I liked it" back, and will often scramble to find advice to give. If you've been told this by readers, whoever they may be, look into the passive voice (google as though you're learning English as a foreign language; the people writing those articles really do know their grammar and live by how easy to understand they make it) and give your piece a stern looking over. Armed with your newly acquired knowledge, you may suddenly see that you've been overusing it and by fixing it, you've (probably) made your writing that bit better. If the aforementioned app gave you this advice, take it with a skipful of salt until you get the same comments back from an actual human.
Specific examples are helpful. Here's the thing: there's nothing inherently problematic about forms of 'to be' -- is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been. It's the repetition, both of sentence structure and isolated word, that's the problem. When you have this as a systemic problem, what you really need to look at is shaking up your sentences structure / vocab -- not, imo, so much the elimination of those forms of 'to be' ('was' is usually the most obvious / plentiful offender!). It helps to look at your problem sentences and just think of ways you can impart the same information sans to-be. Eventually, you start to vary things more naturally. In my creative writing course in high school, I had to write essays of X length that only allowed Y instances of to-be, so I got really good at avoiding them. Maybe you could set yourself some exercises like that -- make yourself limit one 'was' per paragraph or something. I don't think that's going to make your writing magically better -- I for sure use more forms of to be in my narrative writing than my high school course would've allowed -- but it'll help you to cut them back, and then find the happy medium. I popped open a wip and ctrl-f'd 'was' to grab an example. Never mind that it's about a bloody merman He was alive. The ocean was lapping blood away from the cuts on his koi-like tail, but it wasn’t so bad that he seemed likely to bleed to death. In this instance 'he was alive' can't be fiddled with much without doing some acrobatics that'd probably just hurt it. Your forms of to-be can be really good for punchy sentences. But I could totally alter the second sentence to "The ocean lapped ..." to wipe out that 'was', and "... but it didn't seem so bad that be might bleed to death" to get rid of the 'wasn't'. I like what I've got just fine, but if I'm budgeting my forms of to-be, I can lose those two no problem. Training your brain to find those alternate phrasings is a good to skill to have in general, I think. (Disclaimer: I'm not entirely sober, so I hope I'm making the coherent point I think I'm making, here.)
I find this fairly disturbing. Why? Did they offer any reason? Was it the usual misunderstanding of what passive voice means (and the usual irrational terror of it) or something else? If you detect snark in my voice, yeah, it's there, but it's aimed at whoever established this rule, not at you.
I don't remember a specific reason, but that doesn't mean there wasn't one. I think it was just to make you vary up your sentences, because I also had specific sentence structures that I had to use X amount of times per essay -- which totally didn't make for forced, clunky writing at all! Totally. There mighta been some "boo hiss passive voice" nonsense in there that I completely zoned out on. Wouldn't surprise me.
Thankyou thankyou thankyou. ...on the surface, it looks like an easy fix. Just going through prose and eliminating all instances of 'was' means you (the writer, not you, Niall Roach!) don't actually understand the problem. Please don't fall for easy fixes. Eliminate all adverbs. Eliminate adjectives. Etc. These words and word forms exist for a reason. Learn what they can do for you. And learn how to use them so they aren't a problem.
Yeah, I definitely don't think it's a completely bad thing. The mindsets that course instilled in me do still come back in helpful ways, I just apply them much less stringently. The problems come up when the student's takeaway is "it has to be X way all the time" imo. If I wrote the exact way I was taught, my writing would be a nightmare. But keeping an eye out for words and phrasings that're really easy to repeat? Sure.
I think you're doing well NOT sober. An exercise like the one you describe is fine, if it's for the purpose of making you think about how you write. I would have a problem with it, however, if you ended up eliminating certain words and forms Just Because. I reckon it's helpful to have a look at writing through this kind of eye. Discover what you, as a writer, do that might make for repetitive writing. Find/replace is your friend, if used judiciously. It can be a sobering experience!
I'm struggling to think of how many times you must have used "was" if it was enough to ruin an entire MS. Are you sure the novel wasn't going anywhere because you overused "was", or was it not going anywhere because you got stuck on plot or characterization or one of the other biggies? I'm not aware of a overuse of "was" as a problem with writing, so I'm going to interpret it as suggested above, a problem with repetitive sentence structure. And that's something that can likely be caught in editing. If your story wasn't going anywhere because it had a big problem, then I think abandoning it may be a good plan. But if it "wasn't going anywhere" because you failed to produce an absolutely perfect first draft, then I suspect your next project isn't going to go anywhere either. Not by that standard. Can you give us an example of a particularly egregious section?
It was an Autocrit program under "Passive Voice" I had 1617 'was' with 621 too many, out of 82000 words. I hoped to get a few clues of how to reduce the number. I will be more aware of it in future writing. The old novel ended when I was unable to navigate a first person POV, with a female MC, about a place I've never been to, and a foreign genre. Other than that, I learned a lot, so if anyone has any questions about Haiti, I'm here.
I went into my archives and grabbed a copy of one of the lines in the now defunct novel. This is an example of the 'was' problem. I was only 15 when she was killed by my father, for adultery. Late at night while I was sleeping, she cried out, when he put a pillow over her face. I heard her muffled screams, and ran in to stop him. When I went to free her, grabbing at his arms, he knocked me away. Hitting my head on the armoire, I fell to the floor. I was unconscious for a moment, and struggled to stand up. Thanks for all the responses.
Oh, goodness, gracious, no. Ignore that. The old "'was' equals passive voice and passive voice is BAD!" nonsense is...nonsense. So is the idea that a program can tell you, with apparently absolute precision, how many of a given word should exist in your story. And you said "way too many"--even if we accept the ludicrous premise of believing the software, no, you had 1.9 percent "was" instead of 1.2 percent "was". No. No. No. Also, no. Can you please hand me your Autocrit program so that I can throw it off the roof of a high building? I'll wait.
There is no 'was' problem in that paragraph. Out of the four "was", only one represents passive voice--"was killed by my father". And the choice between passive or active in that sentence should be determined by whether "she", or the father, is the most important in that sentence. If it's "she", then you keep the passive voice. Passive voice is not inherently bad. I do see two instances of past continuous tense, and I would change one: Hitting my head on the armoire, I fell to the floor. to I hit my head on the armoire and fell to the floor I mention this because sometimes "was" is used in past continuous tense, and it is easy to overuse past continuous, and so it seems faintly relevant to the "was" debate. But a quota for "was"? No. Just, no.
I don't love the "was killed by my father" part, but in the larger context maybe it make sense. Otherwise - "when my father killed her" seems like it would work. (Yes, there's a time and place for the passive voice, but there are many fewer times and places for awkward writing).
At 15, daddy killed her for the crime of adultery. Late at night sleeping in my bed, she cried out when he put a pillow on her face. I heard her muffled screams, and ran in to stop him. When I went to free her, grabbing at his arms, he knocked me away. Hitting my head on the armoire, whatever that is, I fell to the floor. Unconscious for a moment, I struggled to stand up. Okay, I hoovered you was. Send the next two lines
I looked at few of the chapters and I totally understand past continuous now. I left this one: While she was looking for a book, I watched in awe when............. I changed this one: I might have missed some of what she was telling me. to I might have missed some of what she told me. With that one piece of knowledge I removed multiple 'was', and I feel like I have accomplished something today. Thank you
OK, but...'was' should not be removed purely for the sake of removing 'was'. It really, really shouldn't. Really. It should only be removed if you actually see a problem, if you truly believe that the rephrasing is better than the original. There's nothing wrong with 'was'. Nothing.
I find it really creepy, though, that they put 'was' under 'passive voice'. It implies that 'was' is usually passive voice and implies that there's some inherent problem with 'was', and there just isn't. I would flip this to say that if the sentence is already weird and awkward (either on its own or in the context of the surrounding sentences), you should consider changing it. If the user of Autocrit understands that the indicator is absolutely nothing but a kinda-sorta-maybe-possibly-chance that there's something to think about, OK. But telling the original poster that he has "too many" instances of "was" is, IMO, going way beyond that.
Not sure Simpson17 if you are talking about the past continuous tense from Chikenfreak or the cut and paste from Autocrit
