Comments on: Chapter 3 and 4: Be active in your verb choice http://patmillerbooks.com/blog/chapter-3-and-4-be-active-in-your-verb-choice.htm pat miller's meeting place for writers, librarians, and lovers of books Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:08:19 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.2 by: Sydnie http://patmillerbooks.com/blog/chapter-3-and-4-be-active-in-your-verb-choice.htm#comment-3665 Wed, 05 Mar 2008 12:11:08 +0000 http://patmillerbooks.com/blog/chapter-3-and-4-be-active-in-your-verb-choice.htm#comment-3665 The chapter about mixing active and passive verbs opened my eyes to a new writing strategy. I like that idea of the active verb being the actions expressed and the passive verb being the actions received. Usually I spend the beginnning of the school year making my students switch to active verbs. There is a lot of "was going," "are happy," and "had fun" to weed out. After I read this chapter, a student asked how to replace "was" with an active verb for the following sentence. "It was the biggest gym I'd ever seen." With the overwhelming size of the gym acting upon her, I guess it feels right to leave the "was" and move on to putting active verbs elsewhere. The chapter about mixing active and passive verbs opened my eyes to a new writing strategy. I like that idea of the active verb being the actions expressed and the passive verb being the actions received. Usually I spend the beginnning of the school year making my students switch to active verbs. There is a lot of “was going,” “are happy,” and “had fun” to weed out. After I read this chapter, a student asked how to replace “was” with an active verb for the following sentence. “It was the biggest gym I’d ever seen.” With the overwhelming size of the gym acting upon her, I guess it feels right to leave the “was” and move on to putting active verbs elsewhere.

]]> by: lynne http://patmillerbooks.com/blog/chapter-3-and-4-be-active-in-your-verb-choice.htm#comment-3655 Wed, 05 Mar 2008 01:55:39 +0000 http://patmillerbooks.com/blog/chapter-3-and-4-be-active-in-your-verb-choice.htm#comment-3655 Oh, the book Infidel that I mentioned? A couple friends of mine read it and recommended it. The author, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is a human rights activist who grew up in a fundamentalist Muslim household in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya. Like Salman Rushdie, she can't go anywhere without armed bodyguards. I was hooked not only from the first chapter, but from the introduction, where she writes about the Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh (grandnephew of artist Vincent, I think). The two of them had made a short movie together called Submission about Muslim women. She had asked Theo for his own safety to keep his name off of the film credits, but he answered, "If I can't put my name on my own film, in Holland, then Holland isn't Holland any more, and I am not me." Ayaan tells of the murder of Theo that occurred two months later, and says that the murderer "...stabbed a five-page letter onto Theo's chest. The letter was addressed to me." Here's a little summary from the blurb on the book jacket: "...Hirsi Ali survived civil war, female mutilation, brutal beatings, ... and life in four troubled, unstable countries largely ruled by despots. In her early twenties, she escaped from a forced marriage and sought asylum in the Netherlands, where she earned a college degree in political science, tried to help her tragically depressed sister adjust to the West, and fought for the rights of Muslim immigrant women and the reform of Islam as a member of Parliament. Even though she is under constant threat--demonized by reactionary Islamists and politicians, disowned by her father, and expelled from her family and clan--she refuses to be silenced." Oh, the book Infidel that I mentioned? A couple friends of mine read it and recommended it. The author, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is a human rights activist who grew up in a fundamentalist Muslim household in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya. Like Salman Rushdie, she can’t go anywhere without armed bodyguards. I was hooked not only from the first chapter, but from the introduction, where she writes about the Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh (grandnephew of artist Vincent, I think). The two of them had made a short movie together called Submission about Muslim women. She had asked Theo for his own safety to keep his name off of the film credits, but he answered, “If I can’t put my name on my own film, in Holland, then Holland isn’t Holland any more, and I am not me.” Ayaan tells of the murder of Theo that occurred two months later, and says that the murderer “…stabbed a five-page letter onto Theo’s chest. The letter was addressed to me.”
Here’s a little summary from the blurb on the book jacket:
“…Hirsi Ali survived civil war, female mutilation, brutal beatings, … and life in four troubled, unstable countries largely ruled by despots. In her early twenties, she escaped from a forced marriage and sought asylum in the Netherlands, where she earned a college degree in political science, tried to help her tragically depressed sister adjust to the West, and fought for the rights of Muslim immigrant women and the reform of Islam as a member of Parliament. Even though she is under constant threat–demonized by reactionary Islamists and politicians, disowned by her father, and expelled from her family and clan–she refuses to be silenced.”

]]> by: Pat http://patmillerbooks.com/blog/chapter-3-and-4-be-active-in-your-verb-choice.htm#comment-3642 Tue, 04 Mar 2008 03:44:40 +0000 http://patmillerbooks.com/blog/chapter-3-and-4-be-active-in-your-verb-choice.htm#comment-3642 I'm intrigued by the book you are reading. What's the title and what made you want to read it? I’m intrigued by the book you are reading. What’s the title and what made you want to read it?

]]> by: lynne http://patmillerbooks.com/blog/chapter-3-and-4-be-active-in-your-verb-choice.htm#comment-3633 Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:17:20 +0000 http://patmillerbooks.com/blog/chapter-3-and-4-be-active-in-your-verb-choice.htm#comment-3633 Chapter 4 is a timely one now; with all the political debates and campaigning going on, we'll certainly have the opportunity to listen for the use of the passive voice. I did find some good examples of the passive voice used in the book Infidel, an awesome autobiography by Ayaan Hirsi Ali: "If we were good, we were allowed to take books home." "Our mother had been abandoned in a foreign country that she scorned, with three children to guide and no man to act as her anchor." "It wouldn't have occurred to anyone in authority to prevent these children from being taken out of school to marry total strangers, even though most of the girls were reluctant and some were petrified." I have been in the habit of using active verbs for a while now-- when revising I sometimes find weak verbs or "to be" verbs that I replace with stronger ones. I did recently revise an example of the overwritten, "too active" verbs that the chapter mentioned. I went back and forth in my revisions of one sentence, referring to something that either "latched in its claws and wouldn't let go" or "sunk in its teeth and refused to leave" before finally changing it back to the original "stayed." I think if something stands out (in a needling way) each time we read it, that's a sign that the simpler words were better. I hadn't thought about there being appropriate times to use passive voice in writing. In my own WIP though, the main character is a bonded laborer, so there is so much that happens to him that is beyond his control. I'm sure I can find a couple of places where it would work well to use the passive voice to show what others are doing to him or causing to happen to him. (And if his boss ever brings himself to apologize for anything, I'll have him do that in the passive voice like in Orwell's observation about politicians!) Chapter 4 is a timely one now; with all the political debates and campaigning going on, we’ll certainly have the opportunity to listen for the use of the passive voice.

I did find some good examples of the passive voice used in the book Infidel, an awesome autobiography by Ayaan Hirsi Ali:
“If we were good, we were allowed to take books home.”
“Our mother had been abandoned in a foreign country that she scorned, with three children to guide and no man to act as her anchor.”
“It wouldn’t have occurred to anyone in authority to prevent these children from being taken out of school to marry total strangers, even though most of the girls were reluctant and some were petrified.”

I have been in the habit of using active verbs for a while now– when revising I sometimes find weak verbs or “to be” verbs that I replace with stronger ones. I did recently revise an example of the overwritten, “too active” verbs that the chapter mentioned. I went back and forth in my revisions of one sentence, referring to something that either “latched in its claws and wouldn’t let go” or “sunk in its teeth and refused to leave” before finally changing it back to the original “stayed.” I think if something stands out (in a needling way) each time we read it, that’s a sign that the simpler words were better.

I hadn’t thought about there being appropriate times to use passive voice in writing. In my own WIP though, the main character is a bonded laborer, so there is so much that happens to him that is beyond his control. I’m sure I can find a couple of places where it would work well to use the passive voice to show what others are doing to him or causing to happen to him. (And if his boss ever brings himself to apologize for anything, I’ll have him do that in the passive voice like in Orwell’s observation about politicians!)

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