Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Passive Aggressive.

I went over a short story that I'm prepping to submit again, and I think figured out my problem. And I didn't even need to call in Scoob and the gang for any help.

We did a worksheet in my writer's group last week. Lovely, lovely information about naughty little things called passive verbs. Things that end up telling your reader what is, was, or been instead of showing them the interesting actions. All around, good info to keep in mind. I was tired vs My extremities seemed to drag against me like weights. Better visualization and higher word count. Win, win. Yay!

Unfortunately, a dark reality lurks. All those short stories and novels sitting in the hard drive or piles of paper waiting for transcription, yeah, probably FULL of those little nasties. It makes a girl want to cry. Or curl into a fetal position. Or both.

I wound up getting an extra 250 words out of my short story once I cut all the passives out. I know that should make me happy, but the added word count makes me wonder how much more I'm going to get on my other pieces. *sigh* I'll keep you posted.

3 comments:

  1. I read the article, then I glanced back up at the title again. I laughed ^.^

    You have a knack for titles!

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  2. If this is your worst demon, don't be upset. There are worse things that could be wrong with you work,lol. Good luck with the submitting.

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  3. Thanks a bunch! :D

    I agree, there could be way worse things I have to fix than a few passives.

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