To Be, Or Not to Be?

That is the stylish writer's question!

Mar 11, 2023

Dear fellow writer,

Here’s a little editing exercise that I used to assign to my students (and to some of my wordier colleagues as well):

Choose a page or two of your own writing to revise.
Circle or highlight all the "be-verbs": is, was, are, were, be, being, been.
If more than two sentences per paragraph contain at least one be-verb, reduce the number of be-verbs in your writing sample at least by half.

My formula lacked precision, but it worked! Almost like magic, their writing became punchier, livelier, and more human as soon as they had completed the exercise.

Q & A

First, though, I usually had to answer a few questions:

Q: How can I get rid of my be-verbs without changing the meaning of my text?

A: Where possible, rephrase passive sentences in the active voice (for example, "The research was performed" becomes "We performed the research") and replace be-verbs with active verbs ("It is easy to see" becomes "We can easily see").
Q: Why should I bother?

A: Because be-verbs add no new energy to a sentence; they indicate a stable state of existence rather than an action, intention, or change. When you default to be-verbs in sentence after sentence, you risk lulling your readers straight to sleep.
Q: Which sentences should I focus on changing?

A: Choose sentences in key positions that lack energy or agency (“It is the intention of this paper...”), and try to avoid stringing together two or more be-verb sentences in a row — unless, of course, you've used those verbs on purpose for rhetorical effect (“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...”), or if your revision would sound more awkward than the original (“To exist, or not to exist? That question lends itself to careful interrogation.”)

The Writer’s Diet

Eventually, I expanded my one-page editing exercise into a little book called The Writer's Diet, and I developed a free online test that highlights your be-verbs and tells you how many are too many. (If 4% or more of your total word count consists ofbe-verbs, according to my admittedly subjective algorithm, you should consider eliminating at least a few).

I recommend that you use the online test together with the book, rather than as a stand-alone tool. Otherwise you may end up more confused than enlightened! Plus, you'll miss out on a lot of fun stuff: stylistic nuances, quirky examples, and practical exercises to help you sharpen your style.

If you can't get hold of the book, my online User Guide will help you get started, and this in-depth Writer's Diet Clinic video shows you how to use my free Writer's Diet plug-in for MS Word to diagnose full-length documents on your own desktop. Round off your tour of my free resources with To Be (Or Not to Be), a quick, playful Wordcraft Workout on my YouTube channel.

Take the Writer's Diet test

The Writer’s Diet Plus

If you're a WriteSPACE member, you can dig deeper with these premium resources:

Generate an individual Action Plan for every writing sample you test with Writer’s Diet Plus, an advanced diagnostic tool available to WriteSPACE members only.
Visit the WriteSPACE Video Library to watch craft-focused videos including “Writing Wizardry,” which recasts the Writer's Diet as a magic potion for revivifying somnambulant verbs and zombie nouns.
Join me live in my weekly Virtual Writing Studio to meet other writers from around the world, get some focused writing done, and receive targeted feedback on your Writer's Diet test results.

Be proactive and send those pesky be-verbs back to the sticky honeycomb where they belong!

Visit the WriteSPACE

It means so much to me to hear back from my readers. Please leave a comment, share this post with a friend, drop me a restack — or at least toss my busy bee a little heart.

Kia pai tō koutou rā (have a great day) – and keep on writing!

Helen

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