Open Novella Journal 2024

To Be Verbs - Avoid Them

Why was a story eliminated during the second round? Honestly, the reason for scoring low can be as simple as there is a lot of strong contenders for ONC, but there was something I noticed: a few of the writers whose stories were eliminated from the last round wrote stories that involved a lot of to-be verbs, not including dialogue where one would expect to be verbs to be.

What are to be verbs?

They're am, are, is, was, and were with be in there as well, but one of the things I've always noticed regarding the use of to be verbs is that the narrative tells rather than shows something, but often this ties into the fact that instead of using the verb that makes the most sense to use in that situation, the writer instead uses a to be verb instead of a verb that gives the reader more information

For example, compare "they were at home" is a sentence that utilizes a to be verb, but what does this mean. Does the sentence mean "they arrived at home" or does that sentence mean "they stayed at home"? The latter two examples of sentences are sentences where the use of a verb that isn't a to be verb actually gives the reader more information.

Yet sometimes someone may want to use a to be verb. "I felt relaxed because the chair is comfortable." Notice how the to be verb is used after another verb is used here. Dialogue is another place where the to be verb may be a better choice as that is what people would naturally say.

Why is this important?

Take for example, "she is good at soccer." This isn't at all the same as saying, "she played the game well" turning that sentence into something more along the lines of, "she played the game well, scoring three goals in the last ten minutes.

Of course, eliminating to be verbs can also take practice and requires a writer to actively think about the words they are putting down, rather than utilizing the first words that come to mind which is often the sentence that involves a to be verb as that is natural when it comes to speaking, but not for narrative pieces outside of dialogue writing, or perhaps writing letters.

And, I admit, this may not be the reason these stories were eliminated, although how one uses words is a part of ones narrative style, something a writer develops over time.