WAS – A Follow Up – And this one is a “how to” post. :-)

A friend read my last post, and she asked me to do a follow up, explaining how to get rid of the word WAS in a “telling” sentence. Here is what she wrote:

>>On your recent  blog post about overusing “was” – can you do a follow up with ideas how to avoid it? I was reamed for using choppy fragmented sentences – but that’s my usual defense against “was”. So instead of  “His smile was slow and sexy” I would put “A slow a sexy smile”.

And I HATE using  “offered or gave” as verb substitutions into expressions…. I also hate starting sentences with His or She if you feel like putting your editor hat on… Suggestions/ideas?<<

I’m assuming she meant “A slow and sexy smile.”

Here is the response I sent her:

There are a few different ways to rewrite a WAS sentence. Some use “his” or “she” and some don’t. He answered my anger with a slow, sexy smile. A slow, sexy smile lit up his face. (I don’t like that one). That smile. Damn. So slow and sexy. Slow and sexy — that’s how I’d describe his smile. He had a way of making my knees weak with just a look. I watched the other women watching him. Taking in his hot body, his tanned skin, that slow, sexy smile.

I see WAS used to “tell” MUCH more often than I see it used in passive sentences. And I think it boils down to laziness*. It takes a lot more effort, and sometimes quite a few more words, to show (and get rid of was). Author needs to decide what it is they want to “show” the reader in any particular scene – or even paragraph – and then figure out a way to do that. It’s ever so much easier to just come right out and tell something. He was gorgeous. (Yawn). The sky was blue. She was angry. But author can create a much more vivid description by using more words and describing details, rather than providing an overall, one sentence summary.

BUT. It’s okay to use short, choppy sentences, as long as they make sense, and as long as you mix them up with longer descriptions. Your example – A slow and sexy smile. – is unclear. A slow and sexy smile, what? It’s an incomplete thought. You can use short/choppy, as long as you finish the thought. For instance… I peeked at him from beneath my lashes. Wow. Talk about hot. Tall. Dark. Handsome. And that smile! Slow and sexy…. Just, wow!

I used very short, choppy sentences. But everything is there. A complete picture. A complete thought. Easy to following. No lingering questions.

Now, I’ll elaborate a little here.

*Not always, but much of the time, that’s what I’m finding out (see asterisk above). I know sometimes it’s a matter of not knowing there’s something wrong, or knowing, but not knowing how to fix it. And these are usually the areas where an author gets upset w/their editor. Taking “tell” and making it into “show” requires a lot of red ink. Some authors get annoyed or angry. Editors receive emails with questions like, “If you hated my book so much, why did you contract it?” Or statements like, “You’re changing my voice/style. I don’t write like this. It doesn’t even sound like my story anymore.”  All I can say to that is 1) authors should always be open to learning something new and applying what they’ve learned to their stories, and 2) if “telling” is a big part of an author’s “voice,” the author might consider revising their style.

And to really mix things up and confuse you…sometimes, it’s okay to tell. But in my opinion, those instances are rare. If you’re writing sentences like: She was angry. He was tired. They were tired.  — you’re telling, and you’re not giving the reader anything they can “see” – you’re not putting them in the story. So when is it okay to “tell”? When you want to move things along. Or when you want to quickly set the scene. When something must happen so the story moves along, but it’s not incredibly important to the story or the plot. Mundane things the reader must know, but they don’t need to see every detail. These instances normally don’t involve the word WAS, though.

They’re more like this – “Johnny spent six hours searching for his Nintendo controller.” That’s an example of an author imparting information via telling, and most likely, this works just fine. Unless it’s terribly important your readers see all the details of this six-hour search, then it’s perfectly acceptable to just tell them he searched, what he searched for, and how long it took.  Mary got ready for work. That’s telling. Depending on the story, this might be fine. On the other hand, the author might want to use this as an opportunity to impart some sort of information about Mary. Maybe Mary has something like OCD, or maybe she’s got a phobia…she’s afraid to leave the house. So as she goes through her morning ritual, the author can show an increase in Mary’s anxiety, culminating in her inability to turn the doorknob and step outside. Only the author knows when it’s appropriate to tell rather than show. At least, the author should know. In the above instance, when I said it may be okay to “tell” by using Mary got ready for work – even if there’s nothing important the author can impart to the reader by using a longer description, they still might wish to show. Just depends. An entire book filled with short, “telling” sentences will quickly grow boring.

Mary got ready for work. She arrived at the office at 9:00 a.m., on the dot. She spent the next eight hours typing up her boss’ memos. Afterward, she went home and fixed supper. She spent the next two hours watching television, and then she went to bed.

Great. What was the point of all that? Now, if you want to do something like that, and then say something like, She did the same thing. Day after day after day. Then you turn all the “telling” into something more important. You’ve just let the reader know something important about Mary and Mary’s life…and all that boring telling? It works, because it perfectly portrays Mary’s boring existence. But if you do something like this, even though it works, you better quickly move on to more descriptive, “showing” writing. Take the readers deeper into the story, or you’re going to lose them.

So there you have my opinion/ideas on show vs. tell vs. both. Key is knowing the rules and knowing when to break them. Always strive for balance, and keep in mind, your job as an author is to create and maintain the fictional dream.

Here’s an interesting link I found on Show vs. Tell. Although I don’t agree with everything this person says, and some of his (her?) examples make me a little crazy (lol), I still think there’s some good information here. http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative1/showing/#deeper