Writing

In college I learned an exercise that drastically improved my writing skills. Writers call the practice E-prime.

To write in e-prime, simply omit any version of the word “to be” from your prose. Drop is, am, are, were, or was, and also their cousins — the isn’ts, the will-bes, the would-have-been, could-have-been, should-have-beens — scrap them all.

Simple, right?

Not really. Writing in e-prime hurts like a donkey kick to the frontal cortex. But it works; you find yourself thinking constantly about how to replace passive be-type language with more active, verby sentences that haul major freight. Active prose front-loads your writing and gives it a satisfying “oomph.”

Your characters come into greater focus when you describe them using their actions. If I say John was wicked that could mean any old thing. If I say John shot the deer twice, once to kill it, and once because it made him smile, you feel John’s wickedness down in your stomach, and worry.