WAS – NOT a “How To” Post. More of a Rant. LOL

Was – it’s not always passive. Sometimes, it’s “telling,” and in my opinion, that’s even worse.

Why? Because when I see a manuscript filled with the word WAS, I immediately think one of three things:

1. The author doesn’t know any better. He or she is new(ish), and he/she shows potential, this manuscript might still be worth saving. With the help of a good editor, said “Was-ie” manuscript might turn out great. And new author will learn something he/she will apply to the next story. I hope.

2. The author knows better, but doesn’t care. They may or may not know how to make appropriate changes – but they’ll pretend like they do. Further, they aren’t interested in making any changes, so the addition of a good editor to the mix isn’t going to help the matter. This author usually thinks they know everything there is to know – or everything they need to know to get by, and that their books are “just fine” the way they are. They’re usually previously published, sometimes multiple times, and experience has convinced them they have no need to continue learning or refining their craft. Why bother, if publishers keep offering them contracts and readers keep buying their books? Right? These authors will often make comments such as, “So and So (name of famous NY author) does X, Y, or Z all the time. If they can do it, I can do it.”

3. The author knows better, but doesn’t care enough to do anything about it on their own. They’re open to making changes. In many cases, they know their manuscript needs work. But rather than change anything on their own, they turn in a half-baked manuscript and rely heavily on their editor to do all the hard work.

Am I leaving out any other possibilities? Let me clarify – I am fully aware it’s necessary and appropriate to use the word WAS now and then when one is writing a story. I’m not talking about those books. I’m talking about the 7K word short story with 250 instances of the word WAS – oftentimes 2, 3, or more per sentence. Or the novel with 1538 instances of the word WAS.

Do you find yourself overusing the word WAS? Is this a word you address during revisions or self edits? If your story contains a multitude of WASeses, which category (above) do you fall into? Or did I miss one?

Authors who fall into category 1, I totally understand. We were all new once, and “show vs. tell” is one of the harder craft topics to master. But authors who fall into categories 2 and 3 . . . I just don’t get it. And out of the two, the one I really don’t get is number 3, believe it or not. #2-Category authors, well, I guess I need to face the fact that my goals may be different than theirs. Not everyone writes for the same reasons. Some authors write to put out as many “just fine” books as they can, and their primary goal, above all others, is making money. They are only interested in making minimal edits and putting a minimum amount of time into any one book. I may agree with approaching (or dismissing?) writer’s craft in this manner, but hey, like I said, we all have different goals.

But authors in category 3? I don’t understand them. LOL. Why would anyone turn in anything less than their best effort (assuming they don’t fall into category 2)? If an author knows his/her story needs fixes, and he/she knows how to do those fixes, why wouldn’t he/she do them during the revisions or self-editing process? Why would an author rely on their editor to make changes they know they’ll need to make anyway, before the book’s release?

Is this laziness, or something else? Maybe we’ve (publishers and their editors) inadvertently set low expectations, giving authors the impression that’s the editor’s job. Do authors – especially e-published authors – think an editor’s job is to do what authors used to understand were things they needed to handle during the revision process? Have editors added to this problem by “just handling” things (“because it’s easier for me to just do it”) instead of putting these things back on the author? If we’re doing this – and I have a sneaking suspicion many of us are – then we’re partly to blame. We (editors) may think we’re being helpful, but we’re only exacerbating the issue – we’re not really helping anyone. I don’t mean to belittle, but the best simile I can think of is that of a parent who constantly cleans up after a child. It’s just easier, right? If the parent cleans up the mess, it gets done quickly, and it gets done right the first time. No arguments. No tears. No going back and doing it again when it wasn’t done right the first time. But what is that parent actually teaching that child? The child learns it’s okay to make a mess and not clean up, and that if you do, someone (Mom or Dad) will come along behind him/her and clean it up for them.

I think something similar is happening with editors and their authors. Authors somehow acquired the impression that when a publisher contracts a book, they did so because said book is perfect…or nearly perfect…and they won’t be required to make any substantial changes. That’s a myth. Authors also somehow acquired the impression that it’s an editor’s job to clean up the mess. Not true. And again, editors who do so aren’t doing anyone any favors. New authors don’t grow this way – they don’t learn anything they can apply to their next manuscript. There’s never a change, never any improvement, because the editors do everything for them.

In my opinion, we (editors) should begin to put the job of cleaning up the basics – like passive writing and/or “telling” – back on the author. If the author is new, then the editor can take the time to teach the author how to do these things, but then they should back off and allow the author to make the bulk of these changes themselves. This allows the author to learn and apply these things to future manuscripts, to grow and improve. And as authors, we should always strive to improve, to learn and apply new tricks of craft to our stories.

Please note: The comments made in this post are not directed toward any one individual, and I had no single author in mind when I penned this post. This is not intended as an “author bashing” entry. I am very “pro” author, and as I said a couple times, editors who don’t require an author to complete appropriate revisions or self edits aren’t doing anyone any favors. In my opinion, it’s just as important to set appropriate expectations within the industry and assist an author in learning how to do something themselves as it is to release a well-edited book.

Thoughts?

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