{"id":2068,"date":"2014-08-19T08:00:24","date_gmt":"2014-08-19T13:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hilbertthm90.wordpress.com\/?p=2068"},"modified":"2022-06-21T12:34:32","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T17:34:32","slug":"verbs-of-being-and-the-past-progressive-tense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/2014\/08\/verbs-of-being-and-the-past-progressive-tense\/","title":{"rendered":"Verbs of Being and the Past Progressive Tense"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Everyone gets told to “show, don’t tell” at some point in their education. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today I want to talk about an equally important (and related) piece of advice that rarely gets taught. In fact, many people go through their whole lives and don’t even notice this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Until you’re told to look for it, you might miss it entirely, because in speech it sounds so natural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you write something in the past tense, then you will undoubtedly use the word “was.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Example:<\/strong> I was in my room reading a book when there was a knock on my door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Take a moment and answer the question: does this sound fine to you? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Before we begin, I need to point out that sometimes “was” is the best option. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There is no need to blindly expunge all<\/em> verbs of being out of your writing. The thing I look for is whether something is happening. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “To be” is static. If someone is doing something in the sentence, why not make them do it with the appropriate verb? In other words, make the action happen!<\/p>\n\n\n\n First off, replacing “was” with the active verb brings the action of the sentence more vividly to the reader\u2019s imagination (i.e. it shows the action rather than telling the action). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, it naturally varies the sentences. If most of your sentences read “blah was blah,” then it gets boring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A related issue is the past progressive tense. This takes the form “was verb-ing.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are already on the lookout for “was,” this should be no problem to detect. Sometimes it is subtle to identify. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the example, “I was in my room reading” uses past progressive, but I split the infinitive to make it harder to catch. Rearranging makes this clearer: I was reading in my room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The past progressive suffers from the same types of problems as before. It gets repetitive, and it implies inaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two main ways I use to get rid of these constructs:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Strangely, these passive expressions almost always appear when you haven’t sufficiently described the scene. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the first part of the example sentence, the active verb was “read.\u201d In the second part, the active verb was “knock.\u201d One way to fix the sentence is to add some detail and use the right verbs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Edited example: I sat down in my room, excited to crack open Annie Dillard’s The Living<\/em>, when someone knocked on my door.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Part of producing clear, vivid writing involves a long, tedious process of weeding these constructs out wherever possible. There exists unprofessional writing (like this blog post) which maybe goes through one or two revisions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But most professional-quality writing is rewriting and editing a dozen times. I think it is easy to forget how dedicated you have to be to get everything just right. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Your first draft will have these problems, and that’s fine. You can’t be worried about that upfront or else you will never write anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I want to show an example to illustrate that great writers are constantly aware of the problems listed in this post. <\/p>\n\n\n\nPast Progressive Tense<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
How to Fix It<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Demonstration by a Master<\/h2>\n\n\n\n