Your Weak Verbs Are Hiding Behind Helping Verbs

“She was walking toward the door.” “He had been thinking about it.” “They were running.”

Every one of those sentences has a verb buried inside it. The verb is hiding behind a helping verb, draining the energy out of the sentence.

Was walking. Had been thinking. Were running.

The helping verb turns a strong action into a process. Processes are boring. Actions are interesting.

“She walked toward the door.” “He thought about it.” “They ran.”

Shorter. Sharper. The verb does its own work.

Some writers use helping verbs because they think past continuous tense adds realism. It doesn’t. It adds distance. The reader watches the action through a window instead of standing inside it.

Others use them to slow a moment down. If you need to slow down, add sensory detail. Don’t gut the verb.

Open your current draft and search for these words: was, were, had, been. Every hit is a candidate. Check whether the helping verb is earning its place. Most of the time, the sentence gets stronger when you cut it.

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