In Defense of WAS

by Marsha Ward 

[This post is reprinted from a post published in the Writer in the Pines Blog on June 17, 2007. The misguided cautions back then against using was are still around today.]

Lately, I've been listening to a lot of writers get hyper about the word was: how its usage in a novel surely marks the author as an amateur; how terrible it must be to have more than, say, 60 examples of was in a full-length novel; how we should all do a search in our manuscripts and root out the evil word was.

I demur.

No, I didn't misspell demure, meaning quiet and modest; shy, which many people think I am. Little do they know! I mean demur, to raise objection; take exception; object.

Yes, I demur. And now I'll digress a bit, too.

When I was in school, past tense had two forms: preterite (it can be spelled without the last e) and imperfect. Preterite is the simple past tense, like I walked. Imperfect has a helping verb, yes, often it happens to be the infamous WAS: I was walking. It could even be I used to walk.

Now that grammar is much fancier than when I was young, preterite is called simply past tense and imperfect has been split into two, maybe three camps, depending on which source you cite. These are my buddy the imperfect, past progressive, and past continuous. Some people call past progressive progressive past. That's scholars for you, always changing things to get their name out there. The most commonly cited camp of the old imperfect is past progressive, but I like "imperfect," so I'll go with that in my discussion.

Preterite or past tense is used to express actions that took place in the past. Bang! The action was completed. Done. Finished.

Imperfect denotes a past tense with an imperfect aspect. The action is incomplete. It's ongoing in the past, or happened regularly or continuously until it stopped. This might be expressed with a verb ending in "ing": Mary was laboring for fourteen hours. Trust me, that's continuous and progressive, both.

Sometimes you use both preterite and imperfect in the same sentence: As I was walking in the park this morning, I saw a red-winged blackbird. Saw, was, was, saw, hmmmm. [Sorry, I almost digressed again--really far afield. I apologize.]

I studied Spanish in high school and really learned it when I served a mission for the LDS Church in South America. You might say I was learning Spanish the whole time I was there. (Aha! Imperfect!) Spanish makes no apologies for using both past tenses. They each have their use.

Okay, back to why I demur about using the word was. Writers get told to use strong, active verbs to express their action. Yes. That is the best policy, and very handy to keep out passive voice. Most writers take this to mean they always have to use preterite tense.

However . . . when an action is not complete, when it is ongoing, you just gotta use the imperfect tense, which could mean you gotta use was. I maintain that was is misunderstood, misused, and misappreciated, er, unappreciated, and using it not always leads to the dreaded passive voice. All the popular novelists use was. I say you can too! Within reason. Also, with reason. Knowing why you're using it, and all that.

Agree or disagree? Tell me your side of this issue.

Be As Strong As...A Rose?

Last week as I was outside waiting for my son's school bus, I looked over and noticed the start of a rose bush. It's a wispy little auburn branch, still in its infancy with only a few small leaves sprouting out of the stem.

What makes this little wanna-be bush so fantastical is that I've tried to kill that darned thing three times already! I've never been partial to rose bushes. They're pretty to look at, and they smell wonderful, but I don't want them in my yard pricking me every time I need to prune them.

When we moved into our home nine years ago, I knew the rose bushes would have to go. I had one on each side of the front door, and on each side of our garage. The first time I pulled the bushes out, only three came back. And boy did they come back in force! They grew through the winter, and my guests were constantly getting stuck on random branches poking out from the bush like spastic arms going in every direction.

The second time, I pulled the bushes and transplanted them in my dying parent's yard where they could tend the blooms from their patio and watch them grow during their final spring and summer. The roses grew to be large and vibrant – a delight to my father who would use his feet to walk his wheelchair out to the edge of the patio and water the flowers every day. Two new rosebushes grew out of the gaping holes I'd left in the ground at my house.

Finally, this spring, as a Mother's Day gift, my husband and children yanked out the two stubborn bushes, filled in the holes, covered them with three layers of extra thick landscaping tarp, several hundred pounds of landscaping rock, and giant planters filled with lilies.

But alas, the little rosebush found a way around the obstacles and is growing in spite of their greatest efforts.

Every day since I discovered this mutinous little plant, I have smiled and wondered. Is this what we need to be like? Is this how Heavenly Father wants us to act when faced with terrible adversity in our lives, feeling as if we've been wounded to our core and cannot go on? Are we supposed to be strong and resilient like that stubborn little rose bush that doesn't realize it's supposed to die? But instead finds a way through the darkness, lifts itself up, and stands proud for the world to see and admire?

I decided today, as I passed by the rosebush that it had won. It had earned the right to stay in my yard, and I will just have to let it be. It's will is stronger than mine, and I hope that it will stand as a reminder that I should remember to live my life as strong as a rose.

The Latest Publishing News....and it's not good

by Terri Wagner

Every once in a while I revert to my favorite form of writing for myself...technical or non fiction. Today I decided on a whim to look for the latest publishing news. The "worse economy since the Great Depression" (not my words but cannot find the link) has impacted the writing world as much as would be expected. According to the Authors Guild, if authors relied solely on their writing profits, they would be below the poverty line. Sit back and re read that. How can that be? Look at JK Rowling, Tom Clancy, James Rollins, Terry Brooks, the list goes on. Consider Jackie Collins who recently passed away. Bells go off when I read articles like this. I think it is the analyst in me.

The article continues its dismal news by blaming interestingly enough e-book publishing and Amazon in particular. Apparently the Authors Guild blames technology for the low return rate for authors. Not sure I follow that logic. And here's where my nose starts twitching and why I love non fiction.

First, what is the poverty line? Next, what is the average salary from writing and where did they get their information? Follow up, why assume it is the epublishing situation? What other information is out there available? Are salaries down everywhere? Is this a systemic or a isolated event? When did this start to occur? While novelists get a thrill out of their characters, I get a thrill out of tracking down usable information.

Out of my questions, the article answered a few, but not enough for me to decide whether this information is useful to me or not. And that is the real test for non fiction. Is it useful? The stats were derived by a survey of about 1400 writers, over 89% over the age of 50 (which is rather strange since it is young people who are technology savvy). I would have been interested in a bigger cross-section of author age. Of those authors, 33% had at least one self published book. While the Guild admittedly did the survey to ascertain the effect of ebooks on writing salaries, the whole article only whets my appetite.

This is what excites me as a writer and a teacher. Dissect the news. Decide its usefulness. Go prepare a more extensive article yourself. Hmmmm wonder how much money I could haul in that way? The article does not tell us what kind of writers these were. More fodder to uncover! Who said non fiction was boring?

READ!!!

by Cassie Shiels

To be good writers it is helpful to be good readers. Read books in your genre, read other peoples manuscripts, become a beta reader, read books in genres you are interested in but nervous to write, any of these will help you become a better writer. Reading helps us see how stories are put together, how they flow, how transitions are done, how characters interact in the written word, etc. And its just fun!

But don't just read, OBSERVE! Take time to look at the word choice for age groups (especially for children's books). Observe how much time passes in these books, how the author built up the tension (or didn't), how the author kept it a page turner (or didn't) etc.

 If you want sit and write down why you love your favorite books, what pulls you into them? What keep you up late reading at night? What element draws you in the most? What makes you put the book down?
After your observations, make a list of things you want to make sure you are writing in your own books. You could even write a list of things to make sure you don't include in your own books.

I know I always struggle with the limited time I have to write and read as a busy mother. The argument of what is more important is always there, but both are important. I might not read everyday (other then books to my kids) and I might not write everyday, but could I do one or the other every day,? Even if it was only for a few minutes?  Could I say, I am too tired to sit down and write tonight and pull out a book for ten minutes or so instead? I bet I could, and then I would be helping my writing skills either way.

Reading is awesome, and if we didn't think so I doubt we would be writers.

Happy reading and writing!