C.R.I.S.P. — The Core of the Style Revision Method (3.) — Letter I for INVIGORATE [ACTIVATE]
There are several specific things one can do to change a listless or passive sentence into a dynamic and powerfully ACTIVE one. The underlying concept is to replace — in most cases — any form of TO BE with an ACTION VERB . This is even true with things that are non-physical actions per se: thoughts, mental activities, even the inactive DOING of something like “standing,” “looking,” etc.
Perhaps a bit unlikely, the following sentence breaks the rule of INVIGORATE: “It IS quite obvious that a hide-and-seek game IS taking place in which Sarah IS the hider and Jacob IS the hidee. It IS also quite clear that Jacob IS not a fan of this game.” Yes, a bit ridiculous, but grammatically correct English and also the way that most of YOU have learned to meet the “challenge” of the QUANTITY-OF-WORDS ASSIGNMENT of the “500-word theme,” the “ten-page paper” — rather than the request for QUALITY COMMUNICATION that the teacher or professor should have made. So, let’s examine and REDUCE and CLARIFY and ACTIVATE the 36-word monstrosity above. I’ll include the deletion of unneeded intros such as “It is quite obvious…” and “It is also quite clear…” If those two things are true, then the reader will see it — or realize that the writer is seeking to make them believe them— even if they are lies.
Of course a much briefer and more powerful pair of sentences, including activated verbs (usually buried in nominalizations or other nouns) would be something like: “Sarah is hiding from Jacob in their game of hide-and-seek. Jacob doesn’t like the game.” [15 words , less than half of the verbiage (what Richard Lanham in REVISING PROSE calls the “lard factor,” in effect, the fat of the sentence hiding the lean has been trimmed away — note, in each case I have considered the hyphenated compound to be a single word for the count. Also note that in Sarah is hiding… that IS is an auxiliary and NOT the main verb.]
So, here is a list of specific tactics or techniques for this aspect of the C.R.I.S.P. Method of Style Revision:
- In most cases, replace a form of “To Be” with an action or more active verb.
- Rewrite your sentences to make their subjects ACTORS and their verbs ACTIONS.
- Work for “kernel sentences” (i.e. the basic, “simple” sentence: Subject-Verb-Complement) that “shout out” a HEADLINE.
- Avoid Nominalizations (that bury the verb in a noun). EXAMPLE: “The official police are still in the ongoing process of the investigation of the crime.” [15 words] Becomes something better and more active: “The police are still investigating the arson.” [7 words, less than half the verbiage for the reader to wade through!] [NOTE that, in this revision, I’ve also made use of aspects of the letter C (CLARIFY by DELECTION) and its specific rule about getting rid of modifiers, the antonym of which makes no sense. Of course police are “official” and not “unofficial.” Also, “ongoing” is a redundancy and can be deleted, since the word “still” covers the sense of it. FURTHER NOTE the letter R for REPLACE comes into play with my substitution of “arson” for the generic “crime.” THUS, the revised sentence says more and is far more specific — and more active: “investigating,” rather than that verb being hidden in the noun “investigation” — using fewer than half the number of words.]
- Avoid the use of the Passive Voice — in most cases. This is not to say that there is never a use for the passive. In journalism, for example, the better sentence is “The First National Bank was robbed Monday,” contrasted with “Robbers robbed the First National Bank on Monday.” Prefer the Active Voice of the verb to the Passive.
- As Strunk & White say in THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE: “Make statements in the positive form.” In other words, avoid statements that turn things around by using negation. It also takes fewer words. EXAMPLE: “He did NOT usually arrive on time for work.” [9 words] should become: “He was usually late for work.” [6 words] Say what he WAS, not what he WAS NOT.
