In high school, my English Teacher insisted we learn to write without using too much passive voice. I remember questioning her methods and thinking her ideas were pointless.
I WAS wrong. When you are writing in first person past tense it’s difficult not to write with a passive voice, and the story moves so much better if you don’t do it.
So, go through and check your manuscript for the passive stuff. Now, don’t get me wrong. Don’t get rid of every ‘was, is, are, were, am, etc.’ in your book, but trim it down.
A wise man once said to me: If you can replace WAS with a better verb and make your story say the same thing– why wouldn’t you?
If you are having trouble understanding passive voice, I have compiled a few resources for you to check out below:
Just for fun…. I invite you to go through the first chapter and highlight the word was. How many times did you use it?
I used WAS four times in the first chapter of my book that has been edited several times, and in my unedited work I used it eight times.
What about you?
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2 Comments so far
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I found 9 “was”. My problem is that I don’t know how to fix it. I’ll have to go and check out your sites for help on it.
[Reply]
By Brenna on 04.17.09 6:01 pm | Permalink
lol. twenty seven times in chapter one of WIP.
Most in dialogue. But will work on it.
[Reply]
By Sarah on 04.18.09 9:40 pm | Permalink
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