One of the problems with trying to edit your own work is that you get caught up in the difference between what’s in your head and what’s on the page.
One of the ways to evaluate your own sentence is to go through your sentences and look at the kind of verbs that you’re using in each sentence.
We can break our verbs down into three different kinds:
- linking verbs
- thinking verbs
- visual action verbs
Linking verbs
The first kind of verb, linking verbs, is one that a lot of people use all the time, but writers don’t think about very much sometimes.
The main culprit for a linking verb is “to be”. There are eight forms of the verb “to be”. They are “is”, “are”, “am”, “was”, “were”, “be”, “being”, and “been”. If you just have a sentence that says something like, “I am tired.” or, “He was tall.” it’s basically a noun and an adjective with sort of an equal sign verb in between the two of those.
When you have sentences that are working like that they’re just really basic and don’t do a lot or bring a lot of energy on the page.
Thinking verbs
The next kind of verb is thinking verbs. Those are the ones where, “Henry remembered what it was like to take a shower.” or, “She reminisced about her time with her mother.” And these are worth noting, because they’re not visual on the page.
Our goal in writing is to help the reader create a scene or co-create a scene with the author, with the page, and so when you’re just working with thinking verbs, they don’t help the reader see anything.
Visual action verbs
That brings us to our last verb form, which is visual action verbs. These are things like, “He ran” or, “He carried” or, “She walked up the stairs.” Things along those lines really help the reader see the character in a setting in a visual kind of scene. Those sentences will really help your writing get stronger and create a firm connection with your reader.
If you look at a page from one of your favorite authors, you will probably find a mix of linking verbs, thinking verbs, and visual action verbs. But a lot of the strong writers – people like Raymond Carver, Junot Diaz, or Amy Tan – use a lot of visual action verbs and only a few linking verbs and thinking verbs.
How to apply this to your own writing
Identifying verbs gives you a whole new tool in your arsenal to use for revision. This can help you figure out how your writing is working on the page and which sentences and sections of your work you can elevate by using more visual verbs to create a scene that happens in space to co-create with your reader.
- Take a page or a paragraph or two of writing from some of your favorite authors and identify the kind of verbs they use.
- Take a page of your own writing and pay attention to the kind of verbs you’re using. Are you using a lot of linking or thinking verbs? Are there too many visual action verbs in one sentence? Practice identifying verbs in your writing to diagnose potential issues.
