Good verbs

[Dave Monroe]

One key to avoiding bad writing - and Strunk & White will tell you all
about this - is good verbs. They do the heavy lifting, and provide all
the punch for a sentence. If you're looking at a paragraph that just
isn't working, examine the verbs. Here's a case study. I've gone
through two paragraphs of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow (page 610
and 611 to be precise) and highlighted the verbs. He's describing a
car chase featuring a Red Cross Clubmobile, sort of a roadside stand
on wheels.


"Tra-la-la," Krypton now looting the cash register, gobbling Hershey
bars and stuffing his socks with packs of smokes, "love in bloom."
About then Bodine slams on the brakes and goes into a great skid, ass
end of their truck slewing toward an icy-lit tableau of sentries in
white-stenciled helmet liners, white belts, white holsters, a
barricade across the road, an officer running toward a jeep hunched up
and hollering into a walkie-talkie.

"Roadblock? What the shit," Bodine grinding it into reverse, various
goodies for the troops crashing off of their shelves as the truck
lurches around. Shirley loses her footing and staggers forward,
Krypton grabbing for her as Slothrop leans to take the handgun off the
dashboard, finding her half-draped over the front seat when he gets
back around to the window.


That's just 131 words. Of those 131, 18 are verbs (excusing my poor
grammar skills, which might have caused me to miscategorize a few). Of
those 18, zero are the pitifully weak "to be," which does very little
work compared to something muscular like "looting" or "gobbling".
Notice I used 3 instances of it in this mini-paragraph of 4 sentences.

http://weaponsgradeennui.wordpress.com/2008/11/10/nano-2008-day-9/