The Muscle of the Sentence

Active Presence

I spent the morning with a red pen, hunting for the word ‘was.’ It is a deceptive little word—useful, certainly, but often a sign of a writer who is standing too far back from the action. When we say a character ‘was angry,’ we are reporting a fact. When we say a character ‘slammed the ledger shut,’ we are showing a life.

Strong verbs are the muscles of the sentence. They carry the weight of the meaning and provide the momentum that pulls the reader forward. I find that when my prose feels “thin,” it is usually because I’ve relied on state-of-being verbs rather than verbs of motion. By choosing words that carry their own sensory weight, the sentence suddenly stands on its own feet.

The Monroe Minute
Go through a single paragraph and replace every “to be” verb (is, was, were) with a verb that describes a specific action.

Until the next page,
Sloane S. Monroe

Sloane Shay Monroe

I don’t write to idealize love, but to explore it honestly, with emotional precision and depth.