Christina Goebel, M.A.
In this editing series, I explore common errors that I encounter when I edit for authors. In the previous post in this series, I warned writers to slow down when they see the word “to.” Now, I urge you to have caution around the to be verbs, particularly be and being, but also am, is, are, was, were, has been, etc.
How To Be Verbs Can Have Little Meaning
Imagine that we read about Alice from Alice‘s Adventures Under Ground and the author said, “Alice is.” Maybe he said, “Alice is in a state of being.”
What is being? Existing, right? How does a reader visualize Alice being? I picture her standing there, doing nothing. We throw a whole lot of nothing into our writing when we fail to describe which action takes place. Yet, readers need details they can experience with their sensory memory. Remove all the to be verbs you can and replace them with solid action, such as “Alice sat on a round chair,” or “After Alice fell through a hole in the ground, she floated in mid air.” Now we see something meaningful and our readers deserve that from us.
Sentences Needing Work
We were going to the store.
They were given flags to display on the field.
I was writing all afternoon.
It was decided that the men would play baseball.
The play is going to be a hit.
The examples above contain words that serve little purpose in the sentence, and they do not represent easily identifiable action for the readers to imagine.
Let me show you edits for the sentences above.
Revised Sentences
We went to the store. (Didn’t need “going to” and the action is that they went.)
The club gave the players flags to display on the field. (Removing “were” helps us see that the original sentence did not tell us which characters gave or received the flags.)
I wrote all afternoon. (The action occurred in the past, so we can say that “I wrote” and eliminate the “was.”)
The organization decided that the men would play baseball. (When you examine “It was” to look for the action, the first question should be, Who is deciding what the men would do?)
The play will be a hit. (Sometimes you keep the to be verbs. Here, by removing “going to,” we have a stronger sentence.)
Further Edits
A further edit for the first sentence might be:
We rode our bikes to the store. (By using more specific action about how we “went” to the store, the sentence creates a more vivid picture. Hopefully, you have ideas how about to enhance this sentence in another step by describing how we rode our bikes. Did we ride at top speed?)
In the fourth sentence, the organization was deciding that men would play baseball. If this is in a novel, we should hear the decision making as dialogue, because people decide things by discussing them.
The organization’s president said, “After much discussion, we think it best that the men play baseball on Saturdays and basketball on Sundays.” (Dialogue brings “deciding” to life.)
For the final sentence, “The play will be a hit,” we never learn what kind of hit or why.
The play will win a Tony Award for its wondrous soundtrack.
Advanced Editing: To Be Verbs Weaken Poetry
In “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” William Shakespeare wrote beautiful verse. Could it have shined more? Yes. Replace the to be verbs with specific action and imagery.
Original lines from Shakespeare
“Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.
Now am I dead,
Now am I fled;
My soul is in the sky:
Tongue, lose thy light;
Moon take thy flight:”
My imaginary edit for Shakespeare to add specific imagery keep his rhyme pattern
Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.
Now I die.
Now I flee.
My soul flies away from me:
Tongue, lose thy light;
Moon take thy flight.
In the original quote, Shakespeare made the second and third lines rhyme and the fifth and sixth lines rhyme too. “Sky” doesn’t rhyme with “light” and “flight,” but it possesses the sound of a rhyme with the last two lines. In my revision, the second and third lines still rhyme and the line with the slant rhyme before rhymes with lines two and three. I didn’t remove any terrific rhyme patterns or change the meter much.
Advanced Editing: A Closer Look at Poetry Editing
Examine the meme quote from Shakespeare: “My soul is in the sky.” What does that mean? What does it look like to have a soul that is in the sky? I don’t know.
During my imaginary edit for Shakespeare, I would have said, “Show us the action you imagine.” Shakespeare said: “My soul is in the sky.” Doing what? Flying? Then say that.
My edited version shows the soul in the sky and how it travels there: “My soul flies away from me.” I can envision air sweeping past the character into the sky. I imagine the character reaching after his soul as it passes. Oh, he lost it! Or, the soul “is” in the sky doing nothing in particular.
Advanced Editing: A Poetic Defense
During my imaginary edit with Shakespeare, he could say, “Well Christina, you messed up. I used a reverse verb and subject order for the first three lines. You switched the order. I wanted them to read:
“Thus die I… Now am I… Now am I”
Shakespeare might add that having that reverse subject and verb order served as a mid-sentence rhyme and it made the lines easier for actors to remember.
My edit had:
“Thus die I… Now I die… Now I flee…”
I could preserve his internal rhyme by switching my edit to “I die thus…”
Poets have many reasons for structuring lines, stanzas, and phrases the way they do. I advise poets to work at their imagery and I point out when I see where they can add some.
Each poet and author should have the final say about the sound and meaning of her or his work.
What about Hamlet’s Soliloquy?
Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” used to be in its truest sense. He asked, Should I exist? Live or die? (He had learned awful things about his family and didn’t face easy future decisions.) When you write about existence (being), then to be verbs work well.
Whether you write nonfiction, fiction, or poetry, to be verbs play the bad guys in your writing. You know what to do.
Edit Your Work to Replace To Be Verbs
When I took the edits to a deeper level, hopefully you saw how much personality action verbs and specific details add to writing. For my own writing, I complete several levels of edits and one type I use while drafting is to eliminate as many to be verbs as I can. I ask myself when I see the be, was, is, etc. if the sentence could have action verbs or if I failed to add details. After drafting, I search for these errors again.
If I imagine to be verbs as a character in a movie, they portray the boring one. They remove dialogue and details and replace them with “being.” Yawn.