Derevna

Was is a little workhorse of a word. It does the job without excessive augmentation—a statement of fact. Not pompous or flowery at all. Lexical density is a good thing, but it isn’t the only thing.

Aventurist

I completely agree. And you can usually jam ‘said’ into the same garbage bin as ‘was’.

Xander6

Just a word of caution. I’ve seen writers on crit websites take the “Don’t use ‘was’” rule to such an extent that their sentences became overly convoluted. It made the story hard to parse out and a chore to read.

The thing is, simple words like “was” and “said” make reading a story easier. Overuse of these words can become distracting, and it’s something to keep in mind while writing, but in my opinion finding ways to replace these words / rephrase a sentence is end-level editing of a story.

And as far as agents caring about their overuse, I’m not sure I believe it. I’m in the middle of reading a series where the writer overuses “to be” to the extent that I started noticing it–a lot. I’m pretty sure a form of “to be” or “have” is used in every 3 sentences or less. It’s the Murderbot series by Martha Wells, and the first novella was not only a NYT bestseller and critically acclaimed, but also a Hugo and Nebula winner. And yeah, it’s a blast to read!

Marisaw

Very very true. I’ve experienced it here on CC. I had one critique partner whom I found incredibly knowledgeable except that she had declared war on ‘was’.

Because she was so expert otherwise, I didn’t question her at first – but when she rewrote my sentences to avoid ‘was’, I noticed how convoluted some of her versions were. I learned that it’s definitely possible to take it too far.

Xander6

If I remember right, the consequence is basically inanimate objects oftentimes becoming as, or more active, than the actual characters. (The white castle stood / stretched / loomed against the morning’s horizon. Whispering of the slaughter soon to unfold, a chilly breeze brushed against the hero’s cheeks. The curved sword hung on his hip, waiting to be drawn. and so on…)

Shotgun

If they didn’t want me to use was they shouldna put it in the dictionary.

Marisaw

Ah yes, that’s a possible consequence, but my critique partner was obsessive about avoiding passive voice, too. That’s why she ended up turning the language into knots to avoid both!

Jcgreen

I agree about the general concept that you should keep your writing density high. (I do wish the blog had been a bit higher and didn’t waffle!)

But if the blog is going to conduct a war on “was”, please give a solution. If you cut “was” from the given sentence, you get “The castle white”. That makes no sense. There needs to be nuance to the rule, and sometimes good old “was” is best.

And the blog contradicts itself. He admits that telling is shorter than showing, but then doesn’t acknowledge that the consequence of that is a lower density of information. If we just need to know the basics, it may be better to quickly tell us something, rather than expand on something of minor importance through showing.

Michiemap

I agree with this really - better to say “the white castle…” and then what it did to make it active. I see checking out your wases as a way to make descriptions active. It’ll be longer but it’ll be better, so I’m not sure it’s always about brevity. Like all rules though, they’re made to be broken. Lose all uses of “was” (and passive voice) and the writing will come across as silly and awkward. I agree with above that there’s a reason it’s a word!

Onalimb

I can’t say I’ve come up against too many ‘was’ warriors, but as a beginner writer, I managed to tie myself into knots over several inconsequential issues, and I’ve seen others do the same. I’ve also seen something similar, in a writer who avoided all exposition. Their only technique for handling back story was to create a flashback. In every story, that writer would get me interested, only to unceremoniously chuck me out of the opening scene, into a flashback. It lost my interest every time. That experience taught me a great deal about creating solutions that were worse than the problem.

Clarissak

I did this!

I even used the phrase ‘declared war on’

Overall, I think it was (heh) a net positive but I’m letting it creep back in. I still look at each one suspiciously, though.

Jacksavage

nothing wrong with the use of was… Something wrong with a dependency on the use of was though.

Like everything balance and harmony is required.

Rossh

There’s no problem with using the word “was”. Too many writers in critique groups obsess over it an try to avoid it. In doing so, they construct very awkward sentences. All the bestselling writers I read have no problem using the word “was”.

The problem comes when you constantly construct repetitive sentences, as mentioned in the blog post. Variation is the key. A lot of writers in critique groups often try to avoid “was” because they mistakenly believe it’s passive, along with “were” and “had”. It can be, but it depends on the construction of the sentence.

People often seem to mistake past progressive for passive too because it has a “was” in it. For example: “he was throwing” or “she was wearing” They mistakenly flag it as passive and try to correct it to past simple: “he threw” “she wore”. But the point of past progressive is to convey motion and something happening in real time. It’s definitely not passive. Again, it’s a case of variation again. Use it when you need to but not too much.

Frankly, if you try to avoid “was” too much, it’s going to make your writing sound weird. I see people trying to avoid description because of it.

Vidyut

One of those internet trends. Remove was, then dump in acres of needless descriptions… (motive behind removing was is usually getting in descriptive verbs)

Density is nice, but if you start persecuting words to make your writing better, you may want to consider something higher up in the foodchain is wrong - like an unconvincing plot.

Strip “was” from a text, and watch the crits come in with far bigger problems, like “can’t relate”.

Will a sentence get sharper and powerful by removing “was” and using a precise verb instead? Sure. Will a TEXT be improved by stripping it of was? Nope. It will read like a breathless facade. Artistic if done well, but won’t “ring true” on an instinctive level.

Was is a form of “to be” - to exist. The backbone of conveying how things are. One of the most powerful communicators for realism. If nothing WAS in your scene, talk of winning an inch and losing a mile. It is far better to have a dozen extra “was” in your text than run short. Always err on the side of abundance on this one. You can take a few sentences feeling slow - even adds some breathing space from a relentless barrage of parsing. What you can’t take is the essence of your text not resonating.

In fact, one of my perception engineering tricks for compelling characters is to have a few defining “was” statements for the readers to “know”. Nobody has ever caught it. Works like magic.

Disclaimer: this is not to say don’t take opportunities to upgrade was to something useful if you spot it easily, but there’s no need to go hunting for them - if you didn’t spot them, they aren’t a problem. And definitely don’t succeed in removing them all - particularly for defining something - character traits being a biggie.

Shayward

I agree that sentences using “was” can often be folded into more descriptive sentences for less total wordage and more density. (ex - “The knight strode into the white castle’s shadow” instead of “The castle was white. The knight strode into its shadow.”)

That said, the verb has a place. I find it especially useful in exposition. An example from my work: Perhaps this was punishment now, to die forgotten in the wild. Not sure how better to get this idea across without using “was”:

Perhaps he was being punished (passive and still uses was, only now as a helper verb).

“Perhaps I am being punished,” he said to himself (turning it into dialogue is much longer for no apparent benefit, and isn’t “am” the present form of “was”?)

Maybe the same people against “was” are also against exposition, but I find exposition pretty terrible to write without resorting to a was once in awhile.

Honzo

“Where was he when you shot him?”
“He was getting into his car.”

Pretty dense, IMO. You could skip the second ’ he was,’ but it’s implied anyway.

“Where he be when you shot him?” works, I suppose if the character is a gangsta rapper or a 15th century Englishman.

Wendyg

So don’t use ‘was’. It’s lazy, bad writing and it’s probably the reason why you get all those rejection letters.

This makes it sound like you think your novel was rejected by agents because you’ve used ‘was’, but then got accepted the instant you removed them. Correct me I’m wrong but I think that would be highly unlikely.

I don’t think you should make statements like this because it confuses the newbies. A quick check of best sellers shows that the use of ‘was’ doesn’t mean an author will get rejection letters because of it. Whether or not you personally think the use of ‘was’ is lazy/bad writing, it doesn’t directly correlate with whether or not a book is rejected by an agent.

Of course, if you have actual proof that best-selling authors are lazy writers who received rejection letters because they used the ‘was’ word then that is different. Although, it seems GRR Martin was still accepted despite having plenty of ‘was’. A quick google search for GOT excerpts found these two examples with approximately 50 ‘was’ words per extract:
A Song of Fire and Ice
Winds of Winter

Rossh

Sometimes I wonder if people read at all. When they come across “was” in published work, I can only assume they think the writer has got it all wrong. When I read I often see sentences or paragraphs that I know would be ripped apart in places like this.

For example this paragraph by John Le Carre:

The Alvis was in the stable yard; Roach never knew how Jim spirited it out of the Dip, but the trailer was right down there, at what should have been the deep end, bedded on platforms of weathered brick, and Jim was sitting on the step drinking from a green plastic beaker, and rubbing his right shoulder as if he had banged it on something, while the rain poured off his hat. Then the hat lifted and Roach found himself staring at an extremely fierce red face, made still fiercer by the shadow of the brim and by a brown moustache washed into fangs by the rain. The rest of the face was criss-crossed with jagged cracks, so deep and crooked that Roach concluded in another of his flashes of imaginative genius that Jim had once been very hungry in a tropical place and filled up again since. The left arm still lay across his chest, the right shoulder was still drawn high against his neck. But the whole tangled shape of him was stock-still, he was like an animal frozen against its background: a stag, thought Roach, on a hopeful impulse; something noble.

Okycool

Following along with the bit you quoted, it’s funny because this person has listed Harry Potter as one of their favorite books, but it’s filled with the word ‘was’