WAS

WERE

HAD

...these linking verbs and auxiliary verbs can drain your sentence of impact. They make your action verbs weak.

Be specific with your verbiage; not vague. Show the reader the action instead of pointing at it.

Of coarse you can write whatever you want, however you want. But why would you write unnecessary words when you can make the sentence sharper?

If only I could get my high school students to read this... :)

oh my gosh, I was SO bad with my tenses in high school. Still working on it, though. I need to just blacklist those words and stop using them altogether :/

*Laugh* I love this. Whenever I critique a friend's writing selection, I go through and higlight every "was" I find. It's amazing how much of a difference it makes.