There Was: A Bad Way to Begin a Descriptive Sentence
Step up your descriptions by removing and replacing two small words.
I’ve already written a guide to passive voice for this blog, so if you want to know what passive voice is, when to use it, and when not to use it, check out that post.
This is not about passive voice.
This is about something far worse. Sentences that begin with “there was.”
“There was” sentences are passive voice taken to the extremes— a sentence with no real subject and no real action. The least descriptive way to possibly describe something.
Let’s examine how egregious this sentence type truly is by breaking it down with an example: There was a writer. This sentence is passive, which means that not only is there no real action going on here, but your subject and direct object are confused.
What is “was”-ing in this sentence? The writer. They’re pretending to be the direct object, but they’re actually the subject of this sentence, so let’s rearrange it to reflect that.
The writer was there.
The. Writer. Was. There.
Now do you see how terrible this sentence is???
This is a nothingburger sentence. So you have a writer. What are they doing? Being. How/Why/Where are they being? There.
You are a better writer than that.
When we speak, and when we write casually we use “There was…” all of the time, because it’s an easy thing to say. There are no specifics, just a confirmation that a thing exists/existed.
Writing good description is all about multitasking.
You want your descriptions to reveal character and setting and continue the story and entertain your reader, all with as few words as possible. Good descriptions manage to do all four in a paragraph. The best descriptions manage it in a sentence.
“There was…” sentences barely manage to fulfill any one of those tasks. They’re a waste of at least two words, because “there” and “was” can as a rule be replaced by two much, much better words.
A writer sat alone.
A writer drank coffee.
A writer robbed Disneyland.
These are still short sentences with a lot of context missing, but save for “A writer drank coffee,” they all tell you more than “a writer was there.”
Let’s look at a longer example that contains two “there was” descriptions.
The room was small and cluttered. There were embroidered throw pillows on every available surface. One sat on the keys of the piano next to Emily. She picked it up. There was script scrawled on it in pink, cursive lettering: “Eat dirt and dance, scum.”
Emily carefully placed it back. Best not disturb anything, she thought.
Now, let’s look at that same passage with no “there was”s.
Embroidered throw pillows cluttered every available surface of the small room. One sat on the keys of the piano next to Emily. She picked it up and read the pink, cursive lettering scrawled on it: “Eat dirt and dance, scum.”
Emily carefully placed it back. Best not disturb anything, she thought.
Notice how much stronger my sentences are in the latter paragraph. I don’t need to say the room is cluttered, because I’m showing you what’s cluttering it. And by making “clutter” my verb, I’m removing two “to be” verbs that were simply taking too much space. I’m technically adding a word by replacing “there was” with Emily reading the letter, but making my character a more active participant in the scene is worth it.
Embroidered throw pillows and cursive lettering don’t “do” anything in any natural sense. They’re inanimate. They don’t run or write or drink. They just… exist. This makes it easy to, when writing, make existing their action.
Except this is a story and in stories, everything does more than simply exist.
Is the rug “there” or is it “covering a stained carpet” that embarrasses your protagonist or “silencing the intruder’s footsteps”?
“There are” may be a good way to start a sentence on rare occasions. (Like that one.) But if you want to write strong descriptions that pull your reader into the story be creative. Look at whatever you have simply existing and figure out what it’s actually doing in your scene.