• Café Life is the Colony's main hangout, watering hole and meeting point.

    This is a place where you'll meet and make writing friends, and indulge in stratospherically-elevated wit or barometrically low humour.

    Some Colonists pop in religiously every day before or after work. Others we see here less regularly, but all are equally welcome. Two important grounds rules…

    • Don't give offence
    • Don't take offence

    We now allow political discussion, but strongly suggest it takes place in the Steam Room, which is a private sub-forum within Café Life. It’s only accessible to Full Members.

    You can dismiss this notice by clicking the "x" box

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

  • Thread starter Thread starter Emurelda
  • Start date Start date
Invest in You. Get Full Membership now.
Status
Not open for further replies.
E

Emurelda

Guest
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"
 
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.
 
:D...yes or The monster crept down the dark tunnel?
 
Invest in You. Get Full Membership now.
Status
Not open for further replies.

Further Articles from the Author Platform

Latest Articles By Litopians

  • Lessons I’ve Learned
    Some of these lessons I’ve learned the hard way; some I kind of knew subconsciously but wouldn’t ...
  • Hat Thieves Beware
    Summer 2017… schools and nurseries were closed for the holidays, and the grandkids were kicking th ...
  • Writer Beware
    I think AI is inundating my email inbox with author scams. Apparently AI is somehow gathering data o ...
  • Bad advice
    I’ve been on X again. I know, I know. I need to stop, but something keeps drawing me back. Maybe i ...
  • Farty Towels?
    I’ve always found it strange that often the first thing guests ask me, when I check them in is, ...
  • Consequential Detritus
    Mars 20,025 Xenoarchaeological Survey Team Epsilon for Galactic Central Command Captain Mandible? Ye ...
  • The Writer’s House
    Bristol is one of my favourite cities. I visit here a few times a year, and the second part of my no ...
What Goes Around
Comes Around!
Back
Top