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To-be or not to-be....definitely NOT!!

Writing over 10k words every day technique.....

An author's struggles

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Emurelda

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As my literary endeavors progresses through to the editing stages the 'was/is/am/are' etc are first up for the elimination round!

I found it extremely difficult to write the above sentence without using a 'to-be' derivative!! And I still failed!

I found an article to read on the subject...appreciate anymore tips if there are (argh!) any..

"How to Eliminate To-be verbs in writing"
 
A

Alistair Roberts

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I haven't read all of it, - but now I have! I take issue with that article, it just doesn't feel right (or write) to me. For example, this example isn't good in my opinion. >
2. Rearrange-Start the sentence differently to see if this helps eliminate a “to-be” verb. For example, instead of “The monster was in the dark tunnel creeping,” rearrange as “Down the dark tunnel crept the monster.”

Actually, I'd have re-written that as "The monster was creeping down the dark tunnel." Their suggestion really to me is clumsy, but then I'm no expert. Example 4 after that does make sense to me. But when dealing with speech, it has to be 'normal' and plausible. Take it with a good grain of salt I'd say.
 
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Writing over 10k words every day technique.....

An author's struggles

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