In this video, we’ll explore how eliminating weak “to be” verbs and replacing them with powerful, active language will bring your scenes to life and transform lifeless sentences into evocative, engaging writing. You’ll discover when these verbs do have their place, how to spot “smothered verbs,” and why making this simple shift can dramatically improve your storytelling craft.
Hello Jane Cleland here. The question is about to be verbs.
You say don’t use them. Why? We’re getting down to the sentence level here and it’s an important part of revision to look for those to be verbs and eliminate them if you can, replacing them with active verbs. First to be verbs: is, or, was, were, be, being, been, am.
Second: what’s the problem? They reflect merely a state of existence. They don’t show people doing anything. Now I know what’s in your mind. Hamlet’s soliloquy “to be or not to be? That is the question.” The soliloquy is existential. It is about an existential issue. That’s exactly when you want to be using to be verbs.
But for most of us. We want to show people interacting with their environment to use sensory writing to make it more evocative. Don’t tell me Charles is at the mouth of the alley.
Tell me Charles leans against the rough brick wall. To be verbs, have their place, and often it has to do with a passive construction that I’m using purposefully because I want to hide responsibility. Mary climbed the hill. Active verb. Mary is climbing the hill. Doesn’t make any sense. Don’t turn the verb into a noun—ing-verb, a gerund—is a noun. That’s a smothered verb. Let the verb shine.
Now if I wanna hide responsibility, I might go with that smothered verb construction. Does it matter to the buyer that your books are being packed by Albert? No. Does it matter that Albert packed the books? No. What matters is your books will be shipped tomorrow. I call this the hot issue. Get whatever matters to the reader upfront.
When you do that, you’re going to find that you are generally using active verbs.
I’m going to talk more about active verbs in another shortie. I think it’s really helpful to focus on them to think about precision in language. Was this tip helpful? I know you can do it.
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