Lurking in the prose

Look at your last book and count the number of times you used is, are, was, and were. Thoughts? Lessons learned?

by Dietrich

Overusing auxiliary verbs weakens the prose, waters the action and makes the story less engaging. The question got me thinking about whether I was guilty of this, so I took a look at the opening for Dirty Little War. It’s a small part of the first chapter (just 564 words), but let’s check it for culprits.

Huck was getting a sinking feeling about the whole set-up, no place fo...