The editing hell of Book One continues with weak verbs and passive voice. Bear in mind I have two lists of about a hundred crutch words and a dozen passes of the manuscript already. So why is my prose still full of garbage?
Too tense
The text is supposed to be close third-person PoV, past tense. And yet it’s littered with ‘ing’ verbs; present tense. In dialogue, they’re fine. In narrative and description? Just confusing. No matter how many times I go through the text, I find more of them.
‘Last Thursday he came downstairs and said “I’m leaving now.”‘
That works. Spot the difference in these two:
‘He pressed his hand to the door, stroking the antique brass of the hinges.’
See, the change of tense across two clauses just doesn’t sit right.
‘He pressed his hand to the door, and stroked the antique brass of the hinges.’
I’ve gone through the text to shift as many ‘ing’ verbs to ‘ed’ endings as I can.
Weaklings
Among the weakest verbs are ‘was’ and ‘were.’ These aren’t active; they are merely states of being. ‘Was’ and ‘were’ represent passivity. There’s no feeling, sensation or movement. There’s no specificity.
‘She was cold.’
Is this a novel or a crime scene report? Where’s the empathy? The sense of place? The sensual detail?
‘The chill Autumn air bit at her skin. She shivered in response.’
How about:
‘There were seven horses in the field.’
Boring. Let’s do better.
‘Seven horses grazed idly in the field.’
‘Seven horses cantered in the warm sunshine, darting and skipping like foals.’
That’s an example where a qualifying description allows for the ‘ing’ verbs. Which is fine, except I use it far too often.
To Had or Had Not
Another pet hate: ‘had.’
‘The tracker had a bow and arrow.’
So what? What’s the tracker doing with them? What are they like?
‘Had’ states a bald fact, like a grocery list.
‘The tracker drew the bow to full draw, a white-fletched arrow nocked to the string ready to shoot.’
The Unlikely Lads
English is notoriously imprecise at times, tying itself in knots. Would and could feature far too often as the Unlikely Brothers.
In common usage, would and could describe likely or unlikely hypothetical situations.
Could can apply to:
- polite requests; ‘could you open the window, please?’
- possibilities in the future; ‘I could do something about it; I might not.’
- abilities in the past; ‘as a teenager, I could run a mile in ten minutes.’
- abilities now; ‘I couldn’t run that fast now, even if I wanted to.’
I’m more direct if I state ‘I can’t run that fast now.’
Side note: what of ‘even if I wanted to?’ Is that relieved? Wistful? Nostalgic? Ironic?
Would can apply to;
- also polite requests, but with a bit more of an imperative; ‘would you open the window, please?’
- hypothetical situations; ‘I would make changes if I were in charge.’
- polite offers; ‘would you like a drink?’
‘I would make changes’ is a clear statement of intent. ‘I could make changes’ is far less definite.
‘Would you like a drink?’ It’s a little mealy-mouthed; hesitant, deferential.
But ‘can I get you a drink?’ That’s much more positive, willing, proactive. No ‘would’ or ‘could’ here; let’s get those drinks and press on.
In practice
But both could and would are open to abuse. Weak writing frames too many situations as conditional; ‘I would do,’ or ‘I could do,’ when actions need far more energy.
We overly rely on constructions like:
‘You fell off your skateboard? You could have died!’
Here is a hypothetical in passive voice. It’s a curiously elaborate construction we use in informal dialogue all the time. That doesn’t make it good.
‘You could have died!’
Yes I know. Thanks for that overly-dramatised commentary. Is that an expression of empathy and concern? Or is it intended as a warning? Too late. As advice? Too late. As passive-aggressive disapproval? A finger-wagging rebuke? No thanks.
‘Would’ and ‘could’ feature far too often in my prose. Something that will happen in the future, or something that may happen in an imagined situation. There are valid uses that speculate on possible events. Then there’s this;
‘Sometimes he would stop and touch the canyon walls where glyphs marked past visits.’
The scene is not an imagined scenario; it’s not an exploration of the future; it’s now, so why not use direct and active verbs?
‘In places he stopped and touched the canyons walls where glyphs marked previous visits.’
Wooly, wooly
When I’m writing, I like to think my prose is Hemingway-sharp. When I’m editing, I discover it’s Shaun the Sheep; wooly, waffly, wordy, frequently free of all meaningful content. Who wants to read that?
Direct, Active, Meaningful
Crutch words and passive constructions sap the energy from a text like few other errors.
So on the thirteenth pass through the manuscript I’ve made more than three hundred changes against these few items alone; ing, was, were, had, would, could.
And the worst of it? We’re not done with weak verbs and passive voice. There’s more in the crutch list to come.