These Shoes Are Flat

There's nothing wrong with them. In fact, they're pretty darn cute if you ask me, but we aren't talking shoes here. We're talking writing. And let's face it. There's nothing cute about flat writing. In my opinion, this is one of the easiest traps to fall into. A good sign of flat writing is the "to be" verbs: was, are, were, is, etc. Don't use them unless you have to, which will happen occasionally. Example: Inside was the garnet ring. Flat. The ring is doing nothing. The garnet ring sparkled under the fluorescent lights. Still not great, but better, don't you think? The ring now has some sparkly significance. My second challenge for you this week (not that you can do it all in a week) is to try to rewrite every sentence that you've used a "to be" verb. Your words will start to jump off the page. Geez, no wonder these rewrites are taking me so long. How do you feel about "to be" verbs? Do you have a love/hate relationship with them like I do?