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Manisha's avatar

Harvey - thank you so much for sharing your talent. The most descriptive words to me were “scrawny neck on pointed shoulders” and “yellowed fingernail.” I imagined him as an Ebenezer Scrooge before I got to that part. How Brilliant!

Stupid question but I will ask it - what is the difference if you write “his head was bowed” vs “his head bowed” or “his bag was draped” vs “his bag draped.” As a reader, I don’t care but as a writer I feel like I use “was” too much and try to remove it where I can during cycling. Am I wasting my time or do you think that is beneficial?

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Manisha's avatar

Your explanation definitely helps!! ! I didn’t want to tell you, but you figured it out. I “was told” by an instructor that, “if you use ‘was’ your verb is not powerful enough to stand alone, thus boring.” So, yes Harvey, I have fixated on that a bit because I want my story to be “active” and exciting, not passive. OMG - I think you knew this, didn’t you?!

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