posted by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
laramie at 06:12pm on 02/08/2011
laramie at 06:12pm on 02/08/2011This is the text of the article just published in the Midwest Muse. Sorry, I don't know how to do cut tags on Dreamwidth.
What's the Buzz?
It’s all those ‘was’es. I’ve acquired an annoying affliction lately – a sensitivity to the word ‘was’ and its other forms: were, will, wasn’t, etc. These are such useful and prevalent forms of speech that at first I never noticed how much I over used them, or how static an impression they create in prose. In a 90,000 word novel I found 1,429 ‘was’es. That’s more than one in every 90 words, more than 1% of the entire novel consisting of static statements of being.
Consider the phrase, “her hair was dark.” The hair exists, it possesses a quality, darkness. It does nothing. No action takes place, no events transpire. Ordinarily, I’d say, so what? But story-telling is all about the events: what happens, then what happens next.
Consider some alternatives:
1) Her dark hair fell across her brow as she leaned forward.
2) Her dark hair tangled in the rising wind blowing in across the desert.
3) He dug his fingers into the dark mass of her hair, so like the storm clouds gathering above them.
In examples 1 and 2 the hair moves, it acts, it earns its right to the role of subject of its sentence. In example 1 the hair’s action is part of a character’s action, drawing us into that action. In example 2 the hair interacts with the wind and helps to establish setting and mood. In example 3 the hair has become the object of action on the part of another character, and that action helps build the relationship between the characters while also helping to establish setting and mood. This is a sentence working its verbs to really earn its place in the text.
My affliction has gotten so bad that I can hardly read a published novel any more without re-writing the ‘was’es as I go along. And many a published and well reviewed novel can be rife with them.
For instance, here’s what I’d do with the following sentences:
In the first week of October the weather *was* a glorious combustion of blue skies and bright sunlight, and her city *was* in its party best.
This becomes: “In the first week of October the weather exploded in a glorious combustion of blue skies and bright sunlight, and her city donned its party best.” This glorious weather doesn’t just exist, it explodes. The city isn’t passive background, but an active part of the narrative.
There *were* corner parks everywhere, and stands of pine and birch outside the Government Center in the very heart of downtown.
This becomes: “Corner parks prevailed, burgeoning everywhere; stands of pine and birch stood even outside the Government Center in the very heart of downtown.” The parks are active, growing elements of the city. ‘Prevailing’ suggests success against opposition, that the parks act as a true force of nature, pervasive in the setting of the city.
Bahram’s Nahid *was* a city of baked mud brick. Its walls *were* glazed in bright colors to depict gryphons rampant, lions, and horses and men at arms with their beards and hair tightly curled.
This becomes: “His people built Bahram’s city of Nahid from baked mud bricks. For the walls, they glazed bricks in bright colors to depict gryphons rampant, lions, and horses and men at arms with their beards and hair tightly curled.” The city doesn’t simply exist; the actions of men have created it; both men and city belong to the character Bahram. Men created the city and glazed the bricks of its walls with meaningful images, telling the reader much about the characters of men and setting alike.
There *was* no crime that went undetected, but there *was* little crime where there *was* no desperation.
This becomes: “No crime went undetected, but who would commit crimes where no one knew the gnawing spur of desperation?” The existence of crime is taken out of the abstract and related clearly to the living conditions of the city’s people.
These rewrites are small, subtle, but they succeed in reducing the buzz of ‘was’es from more than a handful to none at all, leaving nothing to drag my attention from the story, and in every case making the story richer and more active.
What's the Buzz?
It’s all those ‘was’es. I’ve acquired an annoying affliction lately – a sensitivity to the word ‘was’ and its other forms: were, will, wasn’t, etc. These are such useful and prevalent forms of speech that at first I never noticed how much I over used them, or how static an impression they create in prose. In a 90,000 word novel I found 1,429 ‘was’es. That’s more than one in every 90 words, more than 1% of the entire novel consisting of static statements of being.
Consider the phrase, “her hair was dark.” The hair exists, it possesses a quality, darkness. It does nothing. No action takes place, no events transpire. Ordinarily, I’d say, so what? But story-telling is all about the events: what happens, then what happens next.
Consider some alternatives:
1) Her dark hair fell across her brow as she leaned forward.
2) Her dark hair tangled in the rising wind blowing in across the desert.
3) He dug his fingers into the dark mass of her hair, so like the storm clouds gathering above them.
In examples 1 and 2 the hair moves, it acts, it earns its right to the role of subject of its sentence. In example 1 the hair’s action is part of a character’s action, drawing us into that action. In example 2 the hair interacts with the wind and helps to establish setting and mood. In example 3 the hair has become the object of action on the part of another character, and that action helps build the relationship between the characters while also helping to establish setting and mood. This is a sentence working its verbs to really earn its place in the text.
My affliction has gotten so bad that I can hardly read a published novel any more without re-writing the ‘was’es as I go along. And many a published and well reviewed novel can be rife with them.
For instance, here’s what I’d do with the following sentences:
In the first week of October the weather *was* a glorious combustion of blue skies and bright sunlight, and her city *was* in its party best.
This becomes: “In the first week of October the weather exploded in a glorious combustion of blue skies and bright sunlight, and her city donned its party best.” This glorious weather doesn’t just exist, it explodes. The city isn’t passive background, but an active part of the narrative.
There *were* corner parks everywhere, and stands of pine and birch outside the Government Center in the very heart of downtown.
This becomes: “Corner parks prevailed, burgeoning everywhere; stands of pine and birch stood even outside the Government Center in the very heart of downtown.” The parks are active, growing elements of the city. ‘Prevailing’ suggests success against opposition, that the parks act as a true force of nature, pervasive in the setting of the city.
Bahram’s Nahid *was* a city of baked mud brick. Its walls *were* glazed in bright colors to depict gryphons rampant, lions, and horses and men at arms with their beards and hair tightly curled.
This becomes: “His people built Bahram’s city of Nahid from baked mud bricks. For the walls, they glazed bricks in bright colors to depict gryphons rampant, lions, and horses and men at arms with their beards and hair tightly curled.” The city doesn’t simply exist; the actions of men have created it; both men and city belong to the character Bahram. Men created the city and glazed the bricks of its walls with meaningful images, telling the reader much about the characters of men and setting alike.
There *was* no crime that went undetected, but there *was* little crime where there *was* no desperation.
This becomes: “No crime went undetected, but who would commit crimes where no one knew the gnawing spur of desperation?” The existence of crime is taken out of the abstract and related clearly to the living conditions of the city’s people.
These rewrites are small, subtle, but they succeed in reducing the buzz of ‘was’es from more than a handful to none at all, leaving nothing to drag my attention from the story, and in every case making the story richer and more active.
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Rampant griphons, lions and horses, in brilliant color, watched by warriors with tightly curled hair and beards adorn the glazed bricks of the walls.
:)
I can vividly remember sitting in the big widows in Ukiah and having Mom tell me to play with a sentence, turning it around and trying different configurations till it became active and concise. Dad would look at the same sentence and tell me to only use words a 5th grader could read. In general I like Dad's advice, but not always!!
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