VERBS
Please do not
annoy, torment, pester, plague, molest, worry, badger, harry, harass, heckle,
persecute, irk, bully, rag, vex, disquiet, grate, beset, bother, tease, nettle,
tantalize, or ruffle the animals.
--THE SAN DIEGO Z00
ENGLISH IS
BLESSED WITH GREAT VERBS, as some lover of animals and words acknowledged in
the above sign. Several commandments govern verb use in feature writing:
1. Never
use weak verbs when strong ones will do.
2. Never
use one passive voice when the active one will do.
3. Never
use the past tense when the present tense will do.
4. Never
use big or awkward verbs when little ones will do.
5. Never
use adverbs to shore up weak verbs.
6. Never
carelessly switch verb tenses.
7. Never
violate subject-verb agreement.
Let’s look
at these rules and, equally important, their exceptions.
Verbs can make
or break a story. And nothing will break a story faster than a string of
listless verbs. The main culprits are forms of the verbs to be, to go, to do,
to get, to have, to make. There is nothing wrong with these verbs per se. Far
from it. They are a staple of our language. They are comfortable and familiar;
they don’t startle or disconcert. But too many, thrown around carelessly, will
make readers feel like they a re slogging through quicksand; when the drag
becomes great enough, readers balk and stop—which is fair enough. After all, if
the writer has not been patient enough to sow the story with hardy verbs, then
why should the reader muster enough patience to slog on?
Verb abuse is
a sign that the writer may in fact be sloppy about word choice in general, so
that the sentences suffer not only from verbal anemia but also from other kinds
of neglect. The same writers tend to lean on vagueness and clichés, so that the
story slowly sinks, unloved and untended, into the tepid purgatory where all
such syntax deserves to go.
Whenever you
feel stuck for a pithy verb, consult a thesaurus. It doesn’t always give you
what you want, but it does prod the brain.
Strong verbs
tend to be particularly important in sentences that contain description. This
is because description, while crucial to the life of a story, also stops the
forward progress of the story to focus on specific details that will give it
depth and breadth. To overcome this slowed momentum, it is useful, whenever
possible, to wrap description around action verbs to keep the story moving.
Here is
an example of a stalled description:
She
is small and frail and wears a tattered red dress.
She
goes over to the child, bends down, and picks him up.
The problem
here is that the first sentence contains all description, and no action. The
second sentence plods along behind with weak verbs. To correct this, it can be
rewritten:
The tattered dress clings to (or shifts
loosely on) her frail as she bends to pick up the child.
In this edit,
three weak verbs are cut: is, wears, goes. They are replaced with one new
verb—clings—which describes a more graphic action. By folding the description
from the first sentence into the action of the second sentence, the story no
longer stalls. Instead, the description becomes an unobtrusive part of the
action.
Verbs are a
powerful tool when used to enhance an already dramatic scene. A few years ago,
when a teenager killed her parents in Milburnton, Tennessee, the reporter
re-created the terror with careful description wrapped around riveting verbs.
The first bullet hit Jean Turnmire in the
left breast.
“Ginger, I love you,” the woman said as
her 15-year-old daughter squeezed the trigger again.
The second shot struck the left side of
the woman’s head, killing her instantly and making the third bullet, which
slammed into her back as she slumped forward on her bed, unnecessary.
J. S. Turnmire, hearing the gunshots in
the back of the house, leaped from his easy chair in the den and began running
towards his wife’s bedroom.
He made it to the hallway.
There, a single bullet hit him in the
left nostril, ripping apart the lower half of his brain.
This brutal
scene becomes even more unforgettable when described with the arsenal of verbs:
hit, squeeze, strike, kill, slam, slump, leap, run, rip. It would have been
less awful if the reporter had simply written a straight news story:
“According to
testimony, Mrs. Turnmire was shot three times. Her husband was shot once while
trying to come to her aid.”
Instead, the
re-creation of the gruesome moment with the compelling verbs that heighten the
massacre make this an unforgettable scene—as much as one might like to forget
it.
But it is the
undramatic moments—the ho-hum scenarios of everyday life—that provide the real
challenge in verb use. Then the writer’s ingenuity is put to the test. Trying to
insert verve into a political luncheon, a public-relations event, a grand
opening or ground-breaking; trying to spice up the profile of a person who is
uncooperative or boring—these are the features in which writers must pry out
those verbs that may salvage the story.
Indeed, verbs
can save the writer who is faced with the formidable task of trying to make
people and events look more interesting than they really are.
Here is how
one reporter handled a public-relations birthday party for singer Jerry Lee
Lewis, held at a bar in Memphis, Tennessee.
Invitations in hand, his friends surged
into Hemando’s Hideaway, a wood-paneled juke joint on Memphis’ south side, to
get liquored up and to party all night long last Monday. . .
Squeezing around his table, they jockeyed
for his attention. Big-boned, hulking farmers vied with publicity men in
leisure suits to shake his hand. Bored young women in leather and chiffon
pressed against giddy middle-aged ladies with beehive hairstyles to take
snapshots and peck him on the cheek.
Every verb is
pulling its weight here; every verb carries momentum. Not because the story
lends itself to these particular verbs, but because the writer found the verbs
and lent them to the story.
The less
experienced writer might have written it this way:
Several hundred people came to Hernando’s
Hideaway, a wood- paneled juke joint on Memphis’ south side, to have a good
time and try to shake the hand of Jerry Lee Lewis. The people there ranged from
big-boned hulking farmers to publicity men in leisure suits, from bored young
women in leather and chiffon to giddy middle-aged ladies with beehive
hairstyles.
This is the
kind of prose often produced by beginning writers—a prose not yet sensitive to
the power of verbs. The problem in this second example is that all the action
occurs in the first sentence; the second sentence contains only description. So
the writer has two tasks here: first, to integrate the action and description;
second, to beef up the verbs. Why use limp verbs like
“have,” “try,”
and “range” when lively verbs like “surge,” “liquor up,” “party,” “jockey,” and
“vie” are available?
Effective use
of verbs depends not only on your mastery of the subtleties of the English
language, but also on your perceptiveness in gathering the kinds of description
that can be wrapped effectively around the verbs. If you are observant enough,
you can insert action in places where, to the untrained eye, no action seems to
tread.
Here, for
example, is a profile of a train announcer at Pennsylvania Station, a man whose
sedentary job it is to sit in a booth all day long and call out train arrivals
and departures.
He sits alone in a darkened Plexiglass
booth that juts from the wall 10 feet above the floor of the main waiting room.
One day this week, a commuter leaned against a post and waited for Mr. Simmons
to bellow his next “All aboard!”, then gave him the thumbs-up sign and hustled
off to work. An elderly woman waited for an “All aboard!”, then blew Mr.
Simmons a kiss and was on her way.
Up in the booth, Mr. Simmons barked out
the last call for The Crescent. An elderly couple applauded. A young couple
held each other in a fast embrace. A young man crashed through the crowd,
racing for the train, and several commuters charging to another train sang out
the “All aboard!” in chorus with Mr. Simmons.
This job is
basically boring, as the subject Daniel Simmons himself pointed out to the
writer. So the writer finds ways to compensate. First, he uses strong verbs
when describing Simmons’s work. His booth doesn’t just stick out or protrude
from a wall, it assertively juts out; Simmons doesn’t just announce loudly; he
bellows, he barks.
Second, the
writer spices up the story by including others’ reactions to Simmons’s voice.
By focusing on a few moments in a given day, and by watching carefully, the
writer is able to capture the kind of detail that lets him incorporate more
zest—people lean, hustle, blow, applaud, hold,
crash, race,
sing—into an essentially quiescent story. Because the writer captures these
responses from others, rather than relying on Mr. Simmons’s response to others,
the writer has managed to work his way around the story until he finds an “in”
for action verbs.
In fact, no
matter how quiet a moment, a good writer can capture it with compelling,
assertive verbs. Here, for instance, is how one writer described a widow at a
memorial service for her husband.
Her head fell forward as the bugler began
to play, her hair covered her face like a curtain, and her face folded like
paper, and then she raised her head, sprung the hair back, almost defiant in
her determination to face up, to be strong.
The untrained
eye might see only a woman sitting quietly, a look of grief on her face. This
writer notices the small details, and then couples them with a series of verbs
that indicate first a closing in upon oneself, a descent into grief—fall,
cover, fold—and then a tentative spark of strength, of tenacity, with verbs
like “raise” and “swing.”
The passive
voice carelessly used slows the pace of the story. When verbs are active, so is
the sentence. When verbs are passive, the sentence also loses its punch:
instead of doing something, the subject has something done to it.
For
example:
Active: She passed the potatoes around the table.
Passive:
The potatoes were
passed around the table.
When a
sentence is in the passive voice, we don’t know who is performing the action.
The actor is missing, unknown unless a phrase is added.
The impact of the passive voice is to
wind the sentence back upon itself, so that instead of moving forward it seems
to be elliptical, with the verb guiding the reader backward toward the subject
of the sentence rather than onward to the object. |
But be
forewarned that verbs are feisty creatures, chafing at their barricades. In
fact, much of what follows will deal with exceptions to this rule to favor the
active voice. Nevertheless, the rule itself stands firm.
There are
times, for instance, when the passive verb form is unavoidable, and even
acceptable. It occurs often, for instance, when writers describe a legal
action: she was released on bond; he was read his rights; police were called to
the scene; court was adjourned; they were promised immunity.
While these
sentences could be converted to the active voice (the judge released her on
bond; the police read him his rights; a telephone call brought police to the
scene; the judge adjourned the court; the district attorney promised immunity)
the change doesn’t improve the copy, and can
even
seem awkward. Common usage wins out.
The passive
voice also might be used when the subject is an unknown or amorphous
“other”—whether an individual or a group. For example:
The
toxic wastes had been put on his property about 20 years ago.
Many
solutions to save the Acropolis have been offered.
In
emergencies, planes are chartered to save lives.
The
government’s plan to demolish the camp by the end of the year has been deferred
for the time being.
It is
understood in the above sentences that the strength of the sentence lies not in
who performed the action, but in the potential results of the action—dumping
toxic wastes, saving the Acropolis, chartering planes, deferring the demolition.
The passive
voice is also a way to avoid inserting the reporter into the story when the
reporter is a witness to an event or a conversation. For instance:
From
his office window, overlooking barbed-wire fences and barren ground, a convoy
of white soldiers could be seen patrolling Soweto.
Here, the
reporter is the one who observed the military patrol during an interview. The
use of the passive voice is a way to convey this information without using the
pronoun “I” or the equally awkward “one,” or “a reporter,” as in “a reporter
saw a convoy of white soldiers . . .”
Or, consider
this interview with a judge who has come under attack for never voting to
affirm a death penalty verdict:
The
chief justice of the California Supreme Court is asked to imagine, momentarily,
that she is gazing across her desk at the mother of a murdered child.
This is a key
question in this interview, a chance for the writer to play devil’s advocate.
However, it would be intrusive for the reporter to write “I asked the chief
justice of the California Supreme Court to imagine....” It would detract from
the real subject of the story—the judge and her opinions. The passive voice is
a neutral shield to keep the writer from intruding upon the reader.
If you are
really confident about your ability to control a story through verb use, the
passive voice may also be used from time to time as a literary device to
reflect a person’s helplessness or inability to control a situation. One
example is in this story about an elderly couple being harassed by teenagers:
On
a night around Easter, his house was bombarded with raw eggs.
Or in
this story of a fatal accident about to happen during the filming of a movie:
Behind
them things were blowing up, brilliant, thudding, high cascades of light.
Each of these sentences has other strengths to compensate for the passive verb form. First, the verbs themselves are lively: “bombard” and “blow up.” Second, the construction (or architectonics) of the sentences compensates for the passive voice.
Let’s look at
the first sentence. It both begins (“On a night around Easter”) and ends (“with
raw eggs”) with prepositional phrases that together absorb the weight of the
sentence. The emphasis is at the beginning and the end, and the verb—the hostile
action—acts like a hinge around which
the sentence swings.
In the second
sentence, the tension seems to rise slowly to a crescendo in the series of
descriptions beyond the verb—“brilliant, thudding, high cascades of light.”
This combination of passive verb and delayed action makes the sentence seem to
move in suspenseful slow
motion—there
is violence, but as seen from a distance, like a far-off bombing.
Or, you can
deliberately use the passive voice to break out of a string of active verbs in
order to alter the pace of the story. When you use passive verbs in this way,
they also tend to highlight information that precedes or follows.
Here, for
example, is how two writers describe U.S. Customs Service agents tracking a
drug-laden plane as it returns from Colombia, South America, to Florida:
Radios began to buzz as voices detail the northward path of the plane. Agents scramble to open metal lockers and pass out flight bags. Pistols are strapped on belt loops. Handguns are slipped into shoulder holsters and boots. Shotguns are filled with shells.
Pilots
huddle over a maze of maps which cover the long route from Florida to an
isolated, unlit airfield deep in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, where
the target plane is expected to land.
Bullet-proof vests are handed out.
Half-smoked cigarettes are crushed into overflowing ashtrays.
The agents rush out the door to their
waiting planes.
Out of the
sixteen verbs used, more than one-third are passive. Yet the scene seems to
crackle with action. Why? First, the verbs are small but powerful, and
(“began”) are in the present tense: buzz, scramble, strap, slip, huddle, cover,
crush, rush.
The writer is
also careful to bracket the entire scene with active verbs: the first two
sentences and the last sentence are in the active, not the passive, voice (and
have peppy verbs like buzz, scramble, rush). And notice how the passive verbs,
with one exception, are confined to short, brisk sentences. That exception
comes in the long single sentence in the middle paragraph,
which helps to break up the repetitiveness of the short, snappy sentences in the first and third paragraphs. That long sentence also helps emphasize the action-packed shorter ones around it.
It is
unlikely, of course, that the writers sat down and did a content analysis of
the impact of using the passive voice in this scene. Rather, they had a sense
of what “works” in their copy—an intuition about language that comes only with
careful attention to word choice and syntax, and that improves with experience.
Consider how
their story would flow if they had followed a hard-and-fast rule of using
active voice only:
Radios began to buzz as voices detail the
northward path of the plane. Agents scramble to open metal lockers and pass out
fight bags. They strap pistols on belt loops. They fill shotguns with shells.
Pilots huddle over a maze of maps which
cover the long route from Florida to an isolated, unlit airfield deep in the
Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, where they expect the target plane to land.
The supervisor hands out bullet-proof
vests. Agents crush half- smoked cigarettes into overflowing ashtrays. They
rush out the door to their waiting planes.
Not bad. It would pass most editors’ desks. But the lack of variety in the verbs makes this less snappy than the original.
However, keep
in mind that the above exceptions prove the rule. Only use the passive voice
with intent—to produce a certain effect—and always use it with care.
When
possible, stick to the active voice. It will get you there faster.
Writing in the
present makes the story seem more immediate, as in the above example. Use it
whenever possible. It particularly lends itself to profiles or “offbeat” features
about places, people, or situations. If you do a feature on a local bakery, a
profile of a fire chief, or an in-depth report of a controversy over an
abortion clinic, it can be presented in the present tense as long as the
bakery,
fire chief, and controversy remain extant.
Big verbs come
in several disguises. There are pretentious ones, silly ones, bloated ones. In
general, the bigger the verb the more oblique its meaning. Short verbs tend to
be more concise.
As the
language evolves, adjectives and nouns are sometimes made into verbs, such as
“to network,” “to finalize,” “to fault,” “to bus,” “to hassle.” These verbs
seem jarring when they first appear.
A recently
heard one is “to office,” as in “She is not officing today” (meaning she is not
coming in to work). Another of recent vintage is “to dorm,” as in “John and I
dorm together.”
Computer
literature is producing an interesting and sometimes irresistible array of new
verbs, as “to bibble” (search through a bibliography). Presumably, one could
say: “I am going to bibble around in my computer.” Or perhaps: “Please bibble
my database.”
The words
“and” and “or,” known by most of us as conjunctions, have also been transformed
into computer verbs. To “and” something means you are going to ask your
computer to search for a listing of a group of topics such as: “Australia and
Kangaroos.” To “or” something means you are going to ask your computer to
search for a group of alternative topics or phrases, such as
“Australia or
Kangaroos.” This is known in computer lingo as a “hedge,” and is used most
often if you are unsure about the terms used in a database. So don’t be
surprised if some day your local librarian explains: “You can or these terms and
then and them with the topic of interest.”
Because
language is malleable, and always in a state of flux, it is hard to know which
of these “new” verbs will eventually enter mainstream English, and which will
just fade away. H. L. Mencken complained way back in 1919 about many new
verbs-from-nouns, such as “to contact,” “to audition,” “to curb,” “to alert,”
“to package,” “to research,” “to panic,” and “to option”—all of
which are now
standard linguistic fare. Mencken, who listed many that never made it to the
end of the century (“to music,” “to biography,” “to siesta,” “to guest”), also
had this to say about verbs and their relatives:
The nouns in common use, in the main, are quite sound in
form. The adjectives, too, are treated rather politely, and the adverbs, though
commonly transformed into the forms of their corresponding adjectives, are not
further mutilated. But the verbs and pronouns undergo changes which set off the
common speech very sharply from both correct English and correct American.
This is only natural, for it is among the verbs and pronouns
that nearly all the remaining inflections in English are to be found, and so
they must bear the chief pressure of the influences that have been warring upon
every sort of inflection since the earliest days.
But if you are
thinking of being creative and cute with verbs, a good rule to follow is:
proceed with caution. An nout-of-place noun or adjective used as a verb will
probably detract from the larger story at hand. It is better to master the compendium
of existing verbs before you start creating new ones. Read John McPhee (who
cultivates verbs like “to parse,” “to sein”) to get a sense of the big ideas
that can come from small verbs. Keep it short. Keep it simple. Keep it moving.
Avoid phrases
like “speak softly” (just use whisper) or “move swiftly” (just use run, jog,
trot, or dash).
Writers
unaware of the power of verbs tend to use adverbs where none are needed. In most
cases, a strong verb is strong enough on its own; the adverb is redundant. A
few redundancies from recently published stories include:
wander
away - wander
totally
destroy - destroy
seriously
consider - consider
wink
slyly - wink
be
absolutely sure - be sure
be
definitely interested - be interested
be
perfectly clear - be clear
search
frantically - search
mercilessly
tortured - tortured
Use adverbs
only when they add a descriptive ingredient to the story that a verb cannot
supply, as in these examples:
He
viciously attacked with a sharp chisel a three-ton block of limestone. [He could have attacked it hesitantly,
skillfully, etc.]
Peter
Mpumelelo paced disconsolately in the sand. [He could have paced thoughtfully, eagerly, etc.]
Ground your
story in one tense. If you start your story in the present tense, stay there.
If you start in the past tense, stay there. You can then use other tenses as
needed to indicate corollary time changes in the story. Many beginning writers
inadvertently change tenses in a feature. It is confusing for the reader, and
will be caught by an editor (one hopes). But editors slip up too. The ultimate
responsibility for producing clean, clear, readable prose rests with the
writer. If you frustrate and confuse your readers with inconsistent verb
tenses, they will avenge themselves by turning to another story.
Single
subjects take single verbs; plural subjects take plural verbs. Once verbs start
to wander from the vicinity of the subject, mistakes appear. Take this story
from the International Herald Tribune:
The very visibility that makes Mrs. Gorbachev the object of
approving and consuming curiosity in the West have led to a broad feeling in
many levels of Soviet society that she is somehow overstepping her position. [It should be: visibility has. ]
Or this
one from the New York Times:
The official radio said his resignation from both the
Burmese Government and the ruling party were accepted. [It should be: was accepted.]
These
basic errors made it past some of the world’s best editors.
One way to
check on how well you are abiding by the seven verb rules in the chapter is to
go through your own story when you are done writing, and highlight your verbs.
You will then be able to see if you have too many dull, passive, or overblown
verbs, verbs shored up by superfluous adverbs, or errors in verb tense or
agreement.
Verbs alone do
not make or break a story, of course. It is, in fact, possible at least in
theory to write a Pulitzer Prize-winning feature using only dull, passive
verbs. Verbs are but one component—albeit an important one—in the complex,
subtle, sophisticated machinery that constitutes a sentence, a paragraph, or a
page of prose.
But
inattention to verbs usually indicates a general laxity about language. Only
strong nouns, and a good sense of the heft of a sentence—how it will handle
itself on the page—will compensate for shaky verbs.
*
* *
Write with
nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs. The adjective hasn’t been built that can pull a weak or
inaccurate noun out of a tight place. . . . In general . . . it is nouns and
verbs, not their assistants, that give to good writing its toughness and color.
----pp.
57-58 of my edition
The Elements of Style
Strunk and White
*
* *
From a
student's report on an appearance by the famous Jimmy Breslin at the J School
last year:
What
Jimmy Breslin Told Me
By
DAN ACKMAN
Jimmy Breslin,
man and legend, spoke to Les Payne’s news editing class yesterday, delivering a
tour de force on New York, journalism and life.
For those who
don’t know—and all should know—Breslin was for decades a columnist at the Daily
News before switching in 1988 to
Newsday, where Payne is an editor. He has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize (of
course) as well as a the George K. Polk
Award and the Meyer Berger Award. He has also written many books including “The
Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight” and his recent memoir “I Want to Thank My
Brain For Remembering Me.”
“You’ve got to
make your living with verbs,” Breslin said, opening his remarks. “And the verb
has to move.” This advice holds whether you’re writing for TV, newspapers or
the Internet.
* * *
From
“The Writer’s Web”:
Adding
Action and Clarity to Writing
Avoiding
Weak Verbs and Passive Voice:
Linking verbs
include the following forms of the verb to be: be, am, is, are, was, were,
being, and been. Contractions such as
I’m, we’re, and he’s are also built upon linking verbs and express a state of
being. Many writers, teachers, and
professionals consider these verbs weak because they do not express any action;
instead, they simply tell the reader that something exists.
Passive voice
consists of a form of “be” and a past participle (look for -ed endings):
The student’s name was mentioned in the
newspaper.
Passive voice
tends to conceal rather than reveal information. In the sample sentence above, we do not know who mentioned the
student’s name or why he or she mentioned it.
The following sentences also conceal important information:
The decision was made. (Who made the decision?)
The telephone
bill was paid last week. (Who paid it?)
The policeman
was concerned by the stories. After hearing them, he was convinced that at
least one person had committed a serious crime. (Whew! The second sentence
drags on.)
On the other
hand, these revisions provide clear evidence of “who did what to whom”:
His parents paid
the phone bill last week.
The senator made
the decision.
The stories
worried the policeman. He knew, after hearing them, that at least one person
had committed a serious crime.
Weak verbs
allow sentences to ramble on; often the predicates of such sentences are too
lengthy and contain confusing prepositional phrases:
Both Becky Crawley and Lily Bart are
looked upon with disfavor on the very evenings of their greatest triumphs in
front of audiences.
A revision of
this sentence might eliminate some of the unneeded prepositional phrases and
clearly state who disapproves of Becky and Lily:
Their audiences disapprove of Becky
Crawley and Lily Bart even on the evenings of their greatest theatrical
triumphs.
The next
sentence should explain how the audiences disapproved of the women.
* * *