And She Was

This is a post about the word “was” and I couldn’t resist getting a Talking Heads reference into the post title.

I finished editing Next Time yesterday, and now I’m going back through one more time. The main reason is to identify every time I use the word “was" in a sentence and replace it with action words. “Was” is generic and I find I tend to overuse it in writing. I’ve already replaced a lot, but not all, of the instances. While it might not make the book sizzle, it does make it crackle a little bit more.

My feeling is that “was” is a lazy way of writing. No action, generic, passive, whatever you want to call it. It’s unavoidable overall, but I’m finding I can do better 80-90% of the times I use it. I know, it’s a lot of work to go through the manuscript again, but I think it’ll be worth it. Plus, I found another typo I didn’t notice before. After this pass I’ll still need to do one more just to make sure it’s ready for the publisher. Especially with all the changes I made in the last chapter. That’s where I tend to create problems.

At least I avoided using “was” as a verb in this post. No promises for subsequent entries.