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Jan Fields, ICL web editor, has published in many and varied children’s and family magazines including Boys’ Quest, Highlights For Children, Shining Star, Crayola Kids, Ladybug, Single-Parent Family and Charisma-Life.  Though she began her career writing for adults exclusively, she was soon lured into the challenging world of children's writing. Jan has taught adult and children’s writing for over twenty years. In addition to this busy schedule, Jan is the editor of Kid Magazine Writer e-magazine. She is a member of the SCBWI and a repeat speaker at local SCBWI conferences. Her articles about writing have been published both in print and online markets such as Keystrokes, Byline, Children’s Writer, and Children’s Book Insider. She also wrote a middle grade fantasy novel for the Creative Girls Club line by DRG Publishing. In her spare time, she sleeps.

"Do You Know What Your Verbs Are Doing?"

by Jan Fields

The smallest complete unit of story that you have available in your writing bag of tricks is the sentence. For a sentence to grip the reader, it needs energy and the generator for that energy is the verb. Some verbs are powerhouses -- strong, specific, and engaging. Some verbs are slower with less power, requiring the strength of the sentence come from specific nouns or else be lacking. No verb is taboo, but helps to be aware of how verbs hold energy. The most vital verbs are (1) very specific to the action you want to convey and (2) single part. The more words a sentence holds, the less punch it packs simply by nature of how the reading brain works. Therefor multi-part or wordy verbs will dilute the sentence and should be used carefully. Let's look at some examples.

Passive Voice

I once saw a request from the children's writer to give her a list of passive verbs to watch for. Technically, there is no such thing as a passive verb because "passive" is a condition, a verb form. Passive voice is a condition that any transitive verb can have. A transitive verb is one with an object -- with a transitive verb, an action is being done to something or someone. So think of passive voice as a state your verb can be in. Asking me to tell you all the passive verbs is like asking me to list all the cold people. Well, just about anyone can be cold at one time or another. Thus, most verbs -- those that are transitive -- can be passive at one time or another.

In English grammar, many sentences can be written as active or passive. Both are equally correct grammatically. However, passive voice usually requires more words and therefore can be awkward, weak and wishy-washy. We avoid passive voice because it is usually not the best way to say what we mean...not because it is wrong.

Let's look at what passive voice really is. In active voice, the subject of the sentence is doing something. That's why it is called "active" -- because your subject is getting a workout. Here are three simple sentences in active voice:

In each example above, the subject is doing something to someone or some thing. You can describe this kind of sentence as N-V-O ... that means Noun (the one doing something) Verb (that thing he does) Object (the one who gets done to). Most any N-V-O sentence can be made passive.

Now, let's turn those sentences passive:

In these sentences now, the one doing something is given a small part of the sentence...or else is not there at all! This is a good way of checking to see if a sentence is passive: who is doing something in your sentence? Has your actor been pushed to the side and left in a "by Joey" position? Or maybe your actor is missing completely. In the sentence "Her eyes were closed" -- the actor (Mary) is missing entirely!

Now, most of us would never use the first or third sentence shown above. We know Joey is the actor and he ought to be in front. But, hey, how about "Her eyes were closed." -- I might want to say it that way! It doesn't use any more words than "Mary closed her eyes." and yet, it has a slightly different feel to it.

Sometimes -- especially when the actor is missing from the sentence -- passive voice is actually a better way to go... look at these examples.

All are passive construction...yet, they feel right. So each sentence should be judged on it's own merits. Look at all passive sentences with a suspicious eye, but if it is really the best way to go -- go for it!

Don't Make This Mistake: Other Uses Of Being Verbs

Now let's look at some sentences that might be mistaken for passive voice because they're a bit wordier than a strictly past tense sentence. Some writers have been told that you can spot passive voice by the presence of a "being" verb. Certainly, a "being" verb is always part of a passive sentence:

When a being verb is used this way, it is called an auxiliary or helping verb. However, passive voice is not the only time you will see being verbs used in a sentence. You will need to know the difference between an auxiliary verb used in a passive voice sentence and one used as part of a verb tense.

1. Past Perfect Tense

Now, most of us write our stories in past tense. For example:
Julie WATCHED the hawk flop around. Bandit BARKED and JUMPED at the injured bird.

Past tense verbs often end in -ed. In most stories, the past tense is actually the moment that the story is taking place in. What happens when we add an action that takes place *before* the moment the story takes place in? Usually we do that with verb tense...let's look at an example.
Julie watched the hawk flop around. Bandit barked and jumped at the injured bird. Someone HAD SHOT the hawk.

Since the shooting happened before the watching and barking and jumping, I need to use a different verb tense in order to push that action further back into the past. This tense is called past perfect and it uses a being verb in its formation. The sentence "Someone had shot the hawk." is ACTIVE voice, past perfect tense. You know it is active because the actor...the one doing something...is at the beginning of the sentence. That is the only real way to judge if your sentence is active or passive -- find your actor and see if he is getting the star role or being pushed aside to a supporting position or pushed out of the sentence entirely.

You would not want to remove the auxiliary verb from the above example because it would totally change the meaning:
Julie watched the hawk flop around. Someone had shot the hawk. [The shooting happened before the watching.]
Julie watched the hawk flop around. Someone shot the hawk. [Now the meaning is different. Julie is watching a hawk and then someone shoots it. The actions are assumed to be successive because the shooting sentence occurs after the watching sentence and both at the same verb tense.]

Because past perfect tense pushes action deeper into the past, it is also sometimes called the "flashback" tense -- most flashbacks begin with past perfect to signal our trip into the past:
As Julie watched the bird, she thought of the last time she had seen it. She's watched the bird soar above the pond, swooping down to fish. Now it was near death. (Do you see how the verb tense signals that different points in time? That's a job of tenses.)

2. Past Progressive

Suppose you want to show that one event happened in the past, and is still happening into the "now" of your story. Here is an example:
The phone was ringing as Mary lugged the groceries through the door.

"The phone was ringing" is an example of past progressive...the event began before Mary started through the door but it is continuing (or progressing). You can see that this form uses an auxiliary verb also --
The phone WAS ringing as Mary lugged the groceries through the door.

Again, this sentence is active voice because the phone is doing something...it is ringing. If you remove the auxiliary very, you have a slightly different meaning:
The phone rang as Mary lugged the groceries through the door.

This implies that the phone began ringing while Mary was lugging. Although it is always best to go with the most simple verb form that conveys your meaning, you do not have to omit all being verbs when it will change the story you are telling. But you need to think about each verb in your stories and articles. One step in every revision should be verb checking and certain questions should always be asked...
(1) If you are using a multi-part verb -- why did you choose it? Do the benefits out-weigh the wordiness?
(2) Have you chosen the very most specific verb to convey the action in the sentence?
(3) If you have a simple being verb alone, does the rest of your sentence have enough power to make up for the loss of verb energy?
(4) Does your sentence contain a "there was" or "there were?" This almost always signals a construction that could be rewritten with more power.
(5) If you use a thesaurus to help you choose verbs, are you sure of everything the verb conveys? Never use a verb you only vaguely know because wrong useage with cause confusion for the reader.

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