Today’s discussion may be for beginning writers, but we all need to check our writing from time to time. This article discusses writing in the past tense. If you are clever enough to write in the present tense, you may want to skip to the bottom.
When teaching writing to middle-grade students, I used the word proximity when measuring how close the plot’s events are to the reader. The goal is to allow the reader to come so close they enter into the scenes.
The direct form for close proximity is Noun-Verb. This means avoiding the passive voice. “I began loading” becomes “I loaded.”
“I was loading” moves the scene back, away from the reader. A noun followed by a verb rids our writing of passive voice. Was, began, started to, and almost take the event one step further away. (I am not suggesting we write every sentence in a simple noun-verb form but suggest that descriptive sentences should have a verb that goes to the action. In past tense, that is an “ed” form of the verb.)
“I was beginning to load ______ when” adds another layer, pushing the reader further from the moment. (I resisted using “just” before beginning.)
Here are some practice sentences. How would you revise them to bring the action into closer proximity?
Bill was just beginning to read his book when the phone started ringing.
When I got to the airship and stepped on board…
As Linda came into the room…
Click here for my Solutions.
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