Avoiding 'to be'

[ScintillaMyntan]

Has anyone ever advised you to cut back on 'to be' verbs? And do you take the advice?

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My high school English teacher required that we use no more than three 'to be' words — 'is,' 'am,' 'that's,' 'we're,' and so on — in a single paper, claiming it would help us use more active voice and stronger verbs. Even then, I didn't know why it counted as 'to be' if you say something like "they are going," because there it just functions as part of the verb tense, doesn't it? It doesn't really suggest existence like other forms of the word.

I've recently learned that some people write and speak in 'E-Prime,' meaning they go without 'to be.' (And this very post uses E-Prime, except in quotation marks where I talk about the word itself, unless I've slipped up somewhere). Sure enough, one of the criticisms listed in the Wikipedia article says 'be' has a lot of functions and it might not make sense to eliminate all of them. Apparently the proponents claim E-Prime prevents you from speaking too forcefully about the qualities of things, requires you to specify who did something, stops you from generalizing, and helps you see psychological problems as temporary and gives you agency: "I feel depressed" instead of "I am depressed." 

I do find that rather convincing. People put so much focus on identity these days; I've stressed out too much about my identity or what this or that says about me. Generally, it would lead to a less rigid way of thinking if we said "I do" instead of "I am," "they do" instead of "they are."

I've recently decided to start avoiding 'to be' just when I describe myself in bios and such, and when I describe people in stories, like when the character first shows up and I introduce them. I'd probably still use it as a linking verb, like before -ing words.

So far, I've noticed it can get awkward to word things in E-Prime. This post probably sounds contrived. Certainly you'd sound off if you talked this way out loud. I've also run into the problem that I can't say my gender without saying something like "I identify as female," which might accidentally give people the impression that I don't identify with my birth gender.

[Alatariel]

I don't think I've ever had a teacher care about this or teach me about it, but after reading more it seems to be similar to passive/active voice.

In my first drafts, I don't pay attention to any of that. Instead, I work on getting the story on the page so that I can focus on editing and tweaking. When speaking or writing here, I don't think about it.

There seems to be a lot of writing advice out there, like 'don't use adverbs' and 'passive/active voice' and 'never use 'that''. I take each piece of advice with a grain of salt. I don't see anything as a MUST because I think writing styles and different stories need different approaches. Sometimes a sentence fragment serves the story and sometimes passive voice is needed to distance the reader from an event in the past. Sometimes I want economy of words to speed through a portion of the story that isn't vital but needs to be included and so adverbs work perfectly.

It's about balance, I suppose. Don't rest too heavily on certain writing rules. It's valuable to know them so you can break them with purpose and not by accident, though.

When commenting or editing, I try to point out passive voice if I feel the moment could be stronger if written with a more active voice. If I'm reading a popular author and notice these things, I will try to understand why this type of writing was chosen for this book/scene. The book I'm reading just started a chapter with 'Olivia has been buried alive.' Though it might have served the story to be more actively descriptive, it worked for this story because that wasn't the important part. What came after was important. She wasn't actually buried alive, but only felt that way because of the crowded stifling room. It was a sensory overload moment. So I think it worked well for what the author wanted to convey.

I guess I agreed! Active voice and active verbs make stories stronger but sometimes passive voice/verbs serve a purpose. 

I also agree that language matters when we speak about ourselves and how we identify. It can be hard to be clear with others, but we can't really control the perception of others.