Avoiding -ing verbs?

[therapist]

I was watching a writing video by a youtuber I think has great advice. In her latest video she recommends avoiding '-ing' and 'to be' verbs, and that this restriction gives more control over the language.

I understand why 'to be' verbs can be a bit weak. But I don't understand avoiding '-ing' verbs. (And she didn't elaborate).

Does anyone know what she means? She has more of a lit-fic background, if that's relevant?

Is there anything wrong with this sentence- 'He waded through the swamp eating a bean burrito'.

 

[Maseeha.Aellari]

I personally love using -ing verbs in my writing. They add another layer to your manuscript, and make actions feel more lively when writing in the past tense. They also make sentences more varied and less clunky because you chose "he waded through the swamp eating a bean burrito" instead of "he waded through the swamp while he ate a burrito"

For example: her fist leaped through the air, propelling him backwards as she reached for her sword.
Instead of: her fist leaped through the air and the force propelled him backwards as she reached for her sword.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

as far as I know, it's about passive and negative voice, and -ings, when used too often, turn passive. But it's like everything, and as Maseeha says they can be used for sentence variation.

(In your example @Maseeha.Aellari it feels to me that the fist is carrying the action rather than the person using it to do the punching, I'd make the whole thing more active by doing something like:

She punched out, propelling him backwards, and reached for her sword.

Without the -ing it could be

She punched and, as he reeled back, she reached for her sword.

That keeps the action with the - active- character, rather than the inactive/can't carry the action on its own, fist)

 

[therapist]

as far as I know, it's about passive and negative voice, and -ings, when used too often, turn passive.

Oh that makes sense. Writing 'Bob sat and listened to the birds' is more active than 'Bob sat, listening to the birds'.
With 'Bob sat, listening to the birds', do you say the subject, Bob, is receiving the action of the verb and so it's passive? Or is that negative voice? (a term I haven't heard before).

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Oh that makes sense. Writing 'Bob sat and listened to the birds' is more active than 'Bob sat, listening to the birds'.
With 'Bob sat, listening to the birds', do you say the subject, Bob, is receiving the action of the verb and so it's passive? Or is that negative voice? (a term I haven't heard before).

I'll leave that one to the grammaticians!

 

[HareBrain]

I prefer "weak" rather than "passive" for this, as passive voice has another meaning where the "true" subject disappears and is replaced by the object. (E.g. "I spilled the coffee" becomes "Coffee was spilled".)

-ing verbs are weaker, I think, because they cannot exist as a solo verb, but can only be supplemental. In "I sat, listening to the birds", "listening" is supplemental to "sat". In "I sat and listened to the birds" it feels more of equal weight.

You can have "I listened to the birds" but not "I listening to the birds". That would need another verb, "was", (which itself feels weak).

Don't know if that helps.

 

[Valtharius]

The whole "don't use passive voice" thing is something I see everywhere and it's long struck me as a canonical example of bad writing advice.
Passive voice is simply when the subject of the sentence goes from being the doer of the action to the recipient of the action.
Here's two examples to remember the difference

Active voice: They built the building in 1977.
Passive voice: The building was built by them in 1977

The subject of each sentence is bolded.

Nota bene: Passive voice is extremely useful when the doer of the action is either unknown or unimportant. For example, if you want the mental focus to be on the action itself of building you can cut out the doers of the action entirely and write something like this:

The building was built in 1977.

The mental focus is on the building and it's history. The reader will be asking "What happened next to the building?"

But if you write: They built the building in 1977.

The mental focus is more so on the builders. Who were they? What did they do next?

Either one could be appropriate depending on what you are trying to convey.

A caveat: the passive voice can be used as a way to deceive people. People can have nefarious motives for not wanting to discuss the doer of an action. For example: Theodore Dalrymple is a psychologist who worked in the British prison system. He's also a rather gifted essayist and in his writing he quotes one of the murderers he interviewed as saying "The knife went in."* No doer of the action specified.

The verb to sit is what linguists call an autocausative verb and that's a third category all together.

I hope that was all informative rather than wordy.

*Thinking about it some more, this is technically autocausative too, not a true passive. I wanted to specify that so as to not make my rant even more confusing.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Gerunds: I've been working on getting the hang of these since school and I had a friend that was obsessed. It's such a fabulous word that I am drawn to them like a weird literary moth trying to commit suicide with a flame and then discovering all I have found is a cold LED light.

In creative writing. I think it's as much to do with the softer -ing sound vs the harder -ed/-n etc sounds. Plus they can (not always) involve more words which dilutes tension. They're also great for creating psychic distance. I've just written a short based on the Oscar Wilde Happy Prince about a statue that used a seagull to steal jewellery. It was in third omniscient and I ended up using quite a bit of passive voice to show that the narrator was telling the story as modern feedback struggled with whose story it was otherwise.

With everything it's about looking at the words and deciding the rhythm you want and the tone you want for a scene. How much distance do you want to create between the reader and the character, how tense do you want the scene to be etc.

 

[Wayne Mack]

Instead of reading the advice as an absolute, 'Don't ever use -ing verbs,' look at it as a hint in revising passages. Use the -ing as a flag for identifying where some text may be improved and don't just look at the particular sentence, but what is before it and after it to see why you feel forced into using an -ing verb in a past tense passage. You may decide to let it stand or you may decide that the section could be improved with a rewrite.

 

[The Judge]

Another potential problem with "-ing" verbs is that care needs to be taken when using the present participle to begin sentences -- more detail here The Toolbox -- The Important Bits

There's also this about the verb "to be" in case anyone wants to explore the issues with that as mentioned in therapist's opening post The Toolbox -- The Important Bits

There are also two or three posts in that thread about the passive voice and one about gerunds if anyone wants further takes on those issues, and plenty of other good advice generally. (NB Non-mods can't add to that thread, but it has a sister thread where anyone can post -- the thread's opening post explains further.)

 

[.matthew.]

In "I sat, listening to the birds", "listening" is supplemental to "sat". In "I sat and listened to the birds" it feels more of equal weight.

I like that, but if the sentence was to be extended to include another '-ed' I reckon the first would work better.
"I sat, listening to the birds as I sipped my tea."

Then again, it works with 'listened' as well.
"I sat and listened to the birds as I sipped my tea."

So, as HareBrain says, it's about weight and balance. It's not inherently wrong to use either and more depends on the rest of the sentence and what you're aiming for. In my examples, I like the first more as it feels more immediate.

 

[Rufus Coppertop]

This is a worthwhile link that goes into some useful detail about how the -ing ending is used not just for the present participles of verbs but for gerunds and even adjectives

Academic Guides: Grammar: Verb Forms: "-ing," Infinitives, and Past Participles

This guide includes instructional pages on grammar.

academicguides.waldenu.edu

And here's another dealing with the present participle or -ing verb specifically.

https://www.ef.co.uk/english-resources/english-grammar/present-participle/

I haven't seen the video but there are two things I also don't understand.

Why in sanity's name should writers avoid using present participles?

And how far does she think the people watching her video should take her advice?

Present participles are something we all use in speech. Does she propose that characters be forbidden the use of present participles in their day-to-day speech?

Is she actually telling us that we shouldn't use them in dialogue?

 

[farntfar]

I say avoid 'ing' nouns as well.

Building, awning and icing (or frosting, for you guys across the pond) have no place in polite society.

 

[tinkerdan]

'He waded through the swamp eating a bean burrito'.

As to this:
You could just as easily write:
He waded through swamp, while he ate a bean burrito.
or
He waded through the swamp, while eating a bean burrito.
or
While eating a bean burrito. He waded through the swamp.
While he ate a bean burrito. He waded through the swamp.
or
He ate the bean burrito as he waded through the swamp.
or
He ate a burrito as he waded through the swamp.

There are a lot of difficulties with this sentence; I'd be asking myself if it is necessary.

 

[Rufus Coppertop]

If I read this - 'He waded through the swamp eating a bean burrito'. - I would have an image of some bloke wading through a swamp eating a bean burrito.

Isn't that what the author needs me to see?

But if I saw this or anything like it, - Whilst engaged in a wanton act of self-empiggenation with a bean burrito, he waded through the swamp. - I would assume that the author has taken bad advice from a self-anointed expert and is busy contorting their prose in order to avoid the use of present participles.

 

[Rufus Coppertop]

I say avoid 'ing' nouns as well.

Building, awning and icing (or frosting, for you guys across the pond) have no place in polite society.

Absolutely! We can craft nice concise sentences without them. For example..................

The edifice loomed above him as he stood in the shade of its canvas-veranda-thingy engaged in the consumption of a cake smothered with a sugar paste confection.

 

[farntfar]

Good try, Rufus.
Shame about "thingy" though.

 

[Rufus Coppertop]

Good try, Rufus.
Shame about "thingy" though.

The erection towered above him as he stood in the shade of its semi-flaccid canvas veranda engaged in the ingestion of a sugar-frosted cake.

 

[Randy M.]

If I read this - 'He waded through the swamp eating a bean burrito'. - I would have an image of some bloke wading through a swamp eating a bean burrito.

I didn't know a swamp could eat a bean burrito.

I supposed it does explain the smell.

 

[Rufus Coppertop]

I didn't know a swamp could eat a bean burrito.

I supposed it does explain the smell.

If he starts hitchhiking on the other side of the swamp, DON'T stop to pick him up. He might actually be the one eating the bean burrito.