I was writing a post about was

Helen posted a link to an article about why avoiding “was” isn’t always the best idea. I agree that it isn’t – “to be” in all its forms is kinda an important verb in our language – but I have to say I often do a search to try to get rid of it.

This helps me avoid two problems:

  • I have a tendency to use the “She was standing by the door” pattern a lot, and it gets way too repetitive. And sing-songy. And repetitive.
  • The boring “she was sad”s, “the ship was red”, the blah was blah. I still have to work hard to remember to put description (both physical and emotional) in, and phrases like that are a good clue that I’m being lazy. Sometimes I do want to use them, but I always want to think about it first.

That said, “was” is only #6 on my list of overused words that I should search for and consider killing. (“Looked” and “glanced” are at the top.)

Do you guys try to avoid “was”?

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