'He verbed' vs. 'He was verbing'

I can relate to this frustration but I don't have a good answer. I keep trying to find verbs that don't require past tense/to be. But it's darn hard.

I'm getting better, but it's a struggle.

themindstream said:

I'm looking at someone's markup on a piece I ran through a writer's group. This person, and only this person, has marked several cases where I used 'X was verbing' and suggested replacing with 'X verbed'. Example:

Mine: "Mama, hurry up!" Small Burrower was literally vibrating with impatience, bouncing slightly as he stood in the aisle...
His: ...Small Burrower literally vibrated with impatience...

I'm not sure what the difference is, if there is one? My vague idea is that I'm using 'was verbing' in describing the state of the person or thing in the moment.

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I'm sure other people have thoughts to share about this, but I'll contribute my thoughts.

What you're talking about is the simple past tense (e.g., "He ran") versus the past progressive tense (e.g., "He was running").

Each has some benefits.
For instance, the simple past tense requires less verbiage, and is sometimes looked at as more "active" rather than "passive", because the subject of the sentence is not as removed as when adding the word "was" into the sentence, which distances the subject from the verb to an extent. TT

The past progressive tense, on the other hand, is useful to use when an action was incomplete (e.g., "He was running until his cell phone rang"), or otherwise intersects in some way with another event (e.g., "He was running when he had witnessed the robbery.")

In general, I'd say if you're using past progressive tense almost exclusively, you're probably using more words than you need to to convey the same thing, which might bog down the pace of your writing. "He ran" is much more succinct and flows smoothly - perhaps more smoothly than "He was running", unless you're trying to indicate there is some sort of intersecting action or condition to consider when the subject was doing the verb.

OK, this is what I should have done in the first place:

7 Ways to Eradicate the Copulative (How to Get Rid of the Verb “To Be”)

MaeZe said:

OK, this is what I should have done in the first place:

7 Ways to Eradicate the Copulative (How to Get Rid of the Verb “To Be”)

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Ahah, I can't keep up with your edits.

I think this is in part up to discretion. As themindstream said, using "was" does, in fact, cause readers to consider a particular moment as something that's in progress. The simple past, on the other hand, evocates an action that has been completed. "He ran" implies that the action was done. "He was running" implies that an action was in the process, AND THEN... dundundun, something. If you don't have an "AND THEN..." to include, then in many cases, you can simply say "He ran" because it's shorter and flows better in most contexts.

I can't remember your examples of cases where you can't say "He verbed." But, in those scenarios - if there is no simple past tense version of that word or phrase, then I think the obvious answer is you could evaluate whether you really are saying what you need to say in the most efficient way, or you just use the past progressive in that case. This seems more rare to me, though.

themindstream said:

Mine: "Mama, hurry up!" Small Burrower was literally vibrating with impatience, bouncing slightly as he stood in the aisle...
His: ...Small Burrower literally vibrated with impatience...

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Neither one is really wrong, but they say slightly different things. It also depends on whose POV you're seeing this from. If it's close POV, i.e. the POV character is describing the scene, I'd expect them to say "he was vibrating". People don't look at someone and say "he vibrated". If it's distant third or omni, the narrator might legitimately say "he vibrated".

The other issue is echoing. You have two gerunds in a row there, and if there's another one immediately before or after this, you could end up with a bad echo. Several consecutive gerunds stand out.

Dennis E. Taylor said:

The other issue is echoing. You have two gerunds in a row there, and if there's another one immediately before or after this, you could end up with a bad echo. Several consecutive gerunds stand out.

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Not be annoyingly pedantic or anything , but those are not gerunds. Gerunds are verbs that function as nouns. Example: "I love swimming." Swimming is a gerund.

To the OP--You use the past progressive tense (was verbing) when you want to indicate an ongoing action, in which neither the beginning nor end is shown. Dennis is right that viewpoint can sometimes affect this.

When I at last found Joe, he was literally shaking in his shoes.
By the time Pete arrived at the pub, Sally was sitting at the bar, drinks waiting.
Sue was sleeping like a baby when the phone rang.

One way to test it is to write it both ways. If it makes sense in the simple form, stick with that. If you try that on the sample sentences above, you'll see that none makes sense written in the simple past tense.

I prefer the scene depicted in the theater of my mind as articulated by themindstream's original passage. The enriched description enhances the imagery much more for me than the proposed truncated version. Of course, it's all pretty much subjective.

If a character walks into a room where a person is doing something, then past progressive may be best.

I walked into the dining room where my brother was eating.

My guess is that you understand the action in that sentence (me walking in) and what I found (my brother in the process of eating.)

It's very different if I change both of those past verbs to the other form:

I was walking into the dining room where my brother ate.

Besides the 'to be' forms of verbs (was verbing), I found it useful to think in terms of taking this extra verbiage to the extreme. People sometimes write qualifiers, and they reduce immediacy. Consider:

I was remembering about thinking about wanting to try to learn to juggle.

^^ That layers a whole bunch of qualifiers on top the nut of my goal: juggling.

I wanted to juggle, or I juggled, is more immediate, doesn't give us brain farts trying to slog through all sorts of qualifying verbs. If you need the extra bits for nuance, go for it--but sometimes it's just how we type out scenes without thinking about the reader's experience of it, and needs to be pruned back. "Was verbing" is sometimes not as strong as 'verbed.' On the other hand I wanted to juggle, and I juggled are not the same things at all.

The example about juggling is extreme, and doubtful you'd ever write that sentence, but if you see how clunky it is (you can parse it, if you try, but yikes) then the suggested conversion of 'was verbing' to 'verbed' starts to make sense. But it depends on the scene and what you are saying.

Dennis E. Taylor said:

Neither one is really wrong, but they say slightly different things.

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Reiterate this. It's a matter of grammatical precision. The writer needs to understand what needs to be said, in order to make the choice of expression. Some general guidelines:

If the action described is quick, you generally don't want the past progressive construction. You would rarely write "The dog was exploding," in preference to "The dog exploded." Past progressive construction, using a "to be" verb and a participle (not a gerund, as has been mentioned) implies continuity or simultaneous action. Simple past construction implies an action that has been completed.

A problem for many (including me occasionally in first drafts) is to fall into past progressive when it should be in simple past. This can be especially problematical when using a past progressive phrase to start a sentence: "Running through the kitchen, he put out the fire." Chances are pretty good that he ran through the kitchen in order to put out the fire, rather than doing both at the same time. I now watch for this trap, and try to avoid using past progressive phrasing at the start of a sentence.

That all said, it must be noted that proper use of "to be" verb forms is perfectly okay and reasonable in narrative writing, and you'll have no trouble finding lots of such usage in the writing of many many many fine writers. The idea that a "to be" verb form is to be "eradicated" as much as possible is a recipe for empurpling your prose, straining to find substitute verbs that stick out like thorns.

caw

You'll meet a few different terms here, just remember the basics: tense and apsect.

Tense shows "when": either through an action: walk/walks/walked, or a state of being: he lives/lived (He lived there)

Progressive aspect shows an "on-going" state or action: walking... living (Walking through the doors... )

You combine a bit of both to form past progressive aspect: He was (a past state of being) walking (an ongoing action).

It's only really a problem if the past progressive is used too much, to the point readers are highlighting them because they're swamping the text. If you are, it's potentially treading close to more 'tell' than show: He was thising, he was thating.

'He ran' is more concrete langauge and easier to visualise for the reader, and it can take away the burden of relying on 'was' to convey the story if it is down to repetition.

But used well, there's nothing wrong with either structure.

Chase said:

In editing manuscripts, I ignore one or even two "would" uses in a long descriptive paragraph. However, this example is where "several cases" appeared:

"Jim would often show anger. He would hyperventilate, then he would lose control and swear while he would throw things."

In such cases, my suggestions are to use alternative wording to avoid unintended repetition:

"Jim often showed anger. He would hyperventilate, then lose control and swear while throwing things."

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Good advice. Was it, er, meant for the other thread?

BethS said:

Good advice. Was it, er, meant for the other thread?

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I swear the line jumped in front of my curser as I clicked (like I hit the tree 'cause it jumped in front of my car ).

I think the first form shows an action as it developes, in the context of the sentence. Small Burrower was vibrating while he was pressing his mother. And the second form shows an action that just happened, and at that moment it was concluded. Small Burrower was vibrating while saying that? Or Small Burrower vibrated and stopped vibrating in that same moment? That's the question.

http://www.5minuteenglish.com/mar10.htm
https://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/simpas-paspro