Some MLAS Backstory

Anon said ...

I just started rereading MLAS, and ... I realized as I started though, that I don't know what happened to Jess's mom. Or why where Josiah went and why he didn't come back for her, when she was a kid--if I remember correctly, Jess' mom was still alive when she went to work for Lazarus.


I pulled a good bit of backstory out of My Lord and Spymaster.

It's always a hard choice. Do I go wandering down these side alleys of the distant past, or stick to the straight highway of what's happening right now.


Here's a bit of a scene about Jess' mom, pulled out of an early draft.

***********

Always liked to watch people, Sebastian did. Probably saw a lot.

He said, "What in Blue Blazes did you think you were doing?"

"It was one of those calculated risks."

"It was a calculated madness. Did you really stab him when you were eleven?"

"I tried to. He was expecting it." She frowned and began fingering along a strand of her hair. "I wanted to kill him, Sebastian. He got me locked up in Newgate when my mother was dying of fever. Bad fever, whatever it was. Both the women nursing her died of it in the end. When I got out -- "

"You were in ... For God's sake, you were in Newgate."

"I was safe enough. Nobody touches what belongs to Lazarus. But I about battered myself silly on the walls, wanting to get to my mother. I kept waiting for Lazarus to buy me free. It took me a couple of days to figure out he was the one who peached on me."

"And your mother died."

"When they let me loose, I went after him. Didn't do much more than scratch him. I think I was out of my mind for a while."

"You think you were ... Jess, is there ever a time you're properly sane?"

"I'm cautious, generally. You barging in and asking Lazarus for me -- now that was daft."

*****************

And here's something about Josiah.

***************

Loyal to the bone."

That described Jess pretty well. She certainly picked godawful men to be loyal to. "Where the hell was this father of hers all that time?"

"In Egypt, in Napoleon's army, shooting at Englishmen." Adrian rolled the pencil back and forth on the table. "That is supposed to be a deep dark secret from us."

"In Egypt."

"Whitby got picked up in Boulogne for smuggling and spent six month in Prison, passing himself off as a Frenchman. Ended up swept into the Emperor's army. It took him years to get loose and back to England. Jess and her mother were on their own."

"And Jess sold herself to Lazarus."

"I imagine Lazarus arranged it that she didn't have any choice."

*****************

Technical Topic -- Query Letter

La Belle Americaine was asking about query letters. I've pulled out mine and set it here for whatever interest it might be.

Went something like ...


Dear Agent,

[60 or 80 words of why I went to this agent. Basically -- who she represented that I admired.]

I've just completed the manuscript of a 120,000-word, Regency Historical, Anneka. May I submit three chapters and synopsis, or the entire manuscript for your consideration?

[100 words on my publication credits.]

Anneka is the story of Grey, spy master of the British, and Anneka, sneaky, experienced agent of the French. They disagree about politics, philosophy, national pride, and how to brew coffee, but they agree on one thing – Napoleon's invasion fleet, lurking in Boulogne harbor, must not sail.

Sometimes at odds, sometimes forced into an unwilling alliance, Anneka and Grey flee rogue French agents, dodge knives, argue moral choices, pluck bullets out of secondary characters, play subtle spy games, and gradually, inevitably, fall in love. Grey must discover that Anneka's cunning, deadly competence rests upon idealism and rock-solid integrity. Anneka must learn to trust Grey, even as he makes her his prisoner ... even as he betrays her. In the end, they are both willing to sacrifice life, and their life's work, to stay together. Anneka makes the fateful choice between Grey and her loyalty to France.

I see their relationship as Bogey-and-Bacall – the tough, tender, sexually-charged mating dance of a man with a duty and a woman with a mission.

How do enemy spies make love? ... Very carefully.

Please let me know if you would be interested in seeing Anneka.

Yours truly,

A bit of Yorkshire dialect

Diane B asks ...

How is 'tha' pronounced?

This is talking about Josiah Whitby's voice.

Now Josiah is from Yorkshire. What we have here is second person familiar, (thee or thou,) of course. This is conventionally represented 'tha' in writing Yorkshire dialect.

I'm leaning on that old convention.
I want to suggest the dialect. Folks familiar with Yorkshire speech will fill in the blanks. Folks who don't know it will not be annoyed.

I'm not making any attempt to be phonetic. That is an ocean without any bottom and I don't intend to fall in.

If you wanted to hear it ... the word I've represented as 'tha' appears in this recording.
It's near the beginning. Listen to the bit that goes ...

"Well, me lad, I said ... it'll be a bit before tha' does that again, maybe."

Though the speaker uses the familiar 'tha' in that spot, he uses 'ye' or "you' elsewhere. '
Tha' was only for intimates.

You can also hear the familiar usage in this long and completely incomprehensible joke. It seems to occur in a couple places. One is about three-quarters of the way though. There, it's pronounced, rather clearly, 'thou'.

MLAS cover

Moth said ...

Definitely off topic here but I was looking at my copy of MLAS and I was wondering why the cover model has brown hair. Was this one of those things where it was out of your hands? Or too late to fix by the time you were aware of the problem? It's just such a silly mistake I'm mad on your behalf that the publishers did it.

I don't have anything to say about the covers. Not before, not during, not after.
That is marketing. Market is an art to me unknown.

Maybe they think a brown-haired cover is more appealing?

It actually isn't the cover artist's fault either. She doesn't have the manuscript to work with, only directions from marketing.

Adrian and Jess met ...

Emlyn said ...

And this may be off-topic, but could you clarify a little more (without spoilers, of course) when and how Adrian & Jess were acquainted? He's in Russia with her & her dad acting as their butler, Hurst (love this! adrian as butler! lol!) after he rescues her from Lazarus, right? Does she know him before this? How did he come to be involved in her rescue?

Leesee ... In Spymaster's Lady, Adrian gets picked up by Josiah's smuggler boat and rescued.

He returns the favor by intervening in Josiah's struggle with Lazarus over who's going to get to keep Jess.

Adrian and Doyle spirit Jess away. She's had a bad fall and she's still drugged into unconsciousness. She doesn't wake up till she's on the ship and away from England. She never saw Adrian.

All that's in the two books, someplace or other.

What's not in the books ....

Adrian is assigned as Head of Section for Russia, based in St. Petersburg. Josiah also sets up one of his offices there. He and Adrian re-establish contact and Josiah lets Adrian use his house as British Service Headquarters.

That's when Adrian and Jess finally 'meet'.

Adrian, Grey, Jessamyn . . . look like . . .

Emlyn says ...


And because you mentioned that Annique resembled a young Natasha Kinski, could you put a face on Adrian as well? And Jess as well?

I got Jess tacked down someplace or other as Robin Wright, in The Princess Bride. Further back in the posts a bit there's links to pictures for both Jess and Annique.

Adrian ...


Two artists' rendering.
painted about five years
apart.












This is Sebastian.
Here, .

[Edited to add -- I've pulled out the copyright photo and put in a link to it. Now we are all legal again. ]



And Grey.










.

creative commons Bollywood Sargam

You are a witch, btw. These characters are ALIVE to me.

.

(jo blinks.)

You mean they aren't alive?

.

.

WAAAAHHH!

Wordie -- speaking of words

Click on the thumb to see it close up. This is a 'word cloud' of the blog. Interesting, no?

The cloud seems to say ... Leesee ... tell one story, action, plot, scene ... really.

Which is what I'm saying.


Oh ...
Here's one for My Lord and Spymaster



Click on the thumb.

And here's one for Spymaster's Lady.

My Lord and Spymaster various stuff

I was getting confused answering posts about My Lord and Spymaster that were appended to the 'Dates' post.

So I decided to bring the last one up here and just add it as a new message.


Lady Leigh writes:

First off- I LOVED My Lord and Spymaster. The one scene I keep coming back to is when Jess is lying in the grass. The whole bit about clover and horehair and Sebastian making love to her eyebrows... I've tried to pick apart what is so powerful about it, all the layers and language, what it makes me feel and how. Did it take you a while to write that scene? Did it just come out as magic?

How long does it take you to plot and write a book? When will Maggie's story be done?

Thanks for all your posts on writing instruction etc. I appreciate it! The method to the madness.

Is there an interview with you anywhere? I missed your month at Julia Quinn and Eloisa James' BB.

Have you ever thought about hosting an online workshop?

OK- enough with the questions ;-)

Leesee --

-- I am so delighted you enjoyed My Lord and Spymaster. I'm still all worried about that one, so I'm glad when anyone says nice things about it.

-- The one scene I keep coming back to is when Jess is lying in the grass

The scene you like -- Jess and Sebastian in the garden. I have no idea why that one worked. I really have no idea.

I'm very fond of it though. It more or less wrote itself just as it stands, all in one piece, and it's one of the first scenes I wrote for MLAS.

In the end, I was going to leave it out, actually. I came about theeeeese close, (jo holds up maybe three centimeters,) to chucking it. Because it is not in the direct line of action. That is, I could have removed the scene and it would make no difference to the forward progress of the story.

Also, I just knew a lot of readers were going to find it slow going.

But I really liked it. So that edged me one hair to the right and I kept the scene.

-- How long does it take you to plot and write a book?

It takes at least a year to plot and write a story. Maybe longer.

When I was writing TSL and MLAS I was redoing all the walls and floors and installing electrical wire and bookcases, (and endless so on,) in a new house. I think I would have got the manuscripts written faster if I hadn't been doing all that other stuff.

I never did finish doing the bathrooms. I really should get on with that.

No time. No time.
(jo, feeling harried)

-- When will Maggie's story be done?

Maggie's story will be late 2009.
I think.

-- online workshops ...?

I did some online writing workshops at the CompuServe Books and Writers Community. Here . It was a while back. They're under the 'Writers Exercises' section.

-- Is there an interview with you anywhere?

I have done some interviews.

I will post links to interviews on the sidebar the next time I gird my loins and go add things to the sidebar.

I have some reviews to add there also -- including one completely pinch-your-nose-it-stinks review -- and have been procrastinating about it.

What they look like . . .

For Grey -- remember, he is not particularly handsome. Maybe Javier Bardem. Photo here, here,

Or possibly Hugh Jackman here and here

For Doyle ... how about Bruce Willis? here

Dates

I wanted to set the dates here and the ages. I hope I have all these right.

Leesee ...


Doyle and Maggie's Story takes place in July, 1794

The Spymaster's Lady -- 1802

My Lord and Spymaster -- 1811

Her Ladyship's Companion -- 1818


Birthdates. Doyle in 1764. Maggie in 1770. Grey in 1775. Sebastian in 1784 Adrian and Anneka in 1782, Jess in 1790.

Annique's jingle

A comment was posted on AAR.


Makes me think of the rhyme Annique in Joanna Bourne's The Spymaster's Lady quotes that children sang during the French Terror

"Let the gutters flow with the blood of the aristocrats, let us wash our hands in their entrails, let all who stand aginst the voice of the people perish like rats.."

which is more bloodthirsty.
I wonder if the author made up that little jingle, or if French children really sang songs like that?


Says I: I did make up that particular jinglem but it's typical of the times.

Technical Topics -- Show and Tell

The truism, 'Show, don't tell,' covers a lot of territory.

On a 'whole-story' level this means plotting that uses dialog and action and internals to tell the story
rather than narration.

Not -- Twelve battalions converged on the small town of Chesterton, determined to quench the fire of the rebellion.

But -- Tony looked out the window at dawn. Red-yellow pinpoint lights circled the horizon, strangely, horribly beautiful. Campfires. The enemy had arrived.


'Tell' tells the story.
'Show' puts us inside the story.

Plotting for 'show, not tell' on a whole-story level,
means general avoidance of scenery, exposition, description, backstory, explanation
and all the other ways the author speaks directly to the reader,
where action can be used instead.



On the level of a scene, 'show don't tell', means information is conveyed not in narration, but in action and dialog. Information comes to us through the filter of a character's perception.


Not -- Jeremy was a hopeless gawk. He'd been that way since High School. which is narrration and the writer speaking to the audience.

But --
Jeremy untangled himself from the front door mat, Karen's dog, appropriately named 'Trip', the overturned aspidistra and his shoe laces.
What a klutz. "You haven't changed a bit," she said.

which is action, an internal, and dialog.
One easy way to make sure we 'show don't tell' is to stay deep in POV. That helps.


Now -- sometimes you find yourself with information to convey that can't be easily put into a character's thoughts or words or shown by a character's actions.
This is a good time to ask yourself if you really need this information.

However, there are also many many times the writer must convey complex information, economically.
And the simplest way to do it is to 'tell'.

Joshua lifted the cup to his lips. Coffee. The true bean of it, and fresh. Coffee came to Latruria by caravan over the hills of Ghangith. That path had been blocked for months by the mountain bandits. The only other source was the sea route. Smugglers. Jandru's smugglers.

He set the cup down without drinking. "How long have you been in Jandru's pay, Madame?"



So sometimes we 'tell, don't show."

This is all part of a huge plot to drive writers insane.

Copyeditors

Just wanted to add this

"Copy editors are the last set of eyes before yours. They are more powerful than proofreaders. They untangle twisted prose. They are surgeons, removing growths of error and irrelevance; they are minimalist chefs, straining fat. Their goal is to make sure that the day’s work ... becomes an object of lasting beauty and excellence once it hits the presses."

From The New York Times, Lawrence Downes
here

Auction for a good cause

Edited to say -- The auction is finished ...

A twofer ... A signed copy of My Lord and Spymaster and a signed copy of The Spymaster's Lady
-- at auction, for a good cause, on Julia Quinn's Bulletin Board.

In a separate item, I'm also offering a critique of 50 manuscript pages of your WIP.

But wait .. that's not all.
Get this special offer only at the EJ/JQ Bulletin Board

NOT SOLD IN STORES !!

ARCs from Eloisa James!!
Teresa Medeiros!!
Stephanie Laurens!!
Loretta Chase!!
Laura Lee Guhrke!!
Julia Quinn!!
Karen Hawkins!!
Elizabeth Hoyt!!
Gaelen Foley!!
A Sabrina Jeffries Manuscript -- signed!!

GO before I run out of !!s.


Such a deal!

srsly ...

Chapter Two -- Maggie

MAGGIE. Chapter Two. I've put the rabbit scene back in.

I have all kinds of excuses, but basically I just like the rabbit.

(gloomily)
I'll probably take it out again.

In other news, I've cleaned up the draft to 7700 words ... and there's thousands more really rough draft.

More Rights

Way cool news.

They've sold Russian foreign language rights to The Spymaster's Lady.

Russian. Oh my.

Tech Tops -- Yet again words ... #3

I'm returning to word usage in TSL.

Franzeca Drouin, Eloisa's research assistant, brings these to me.

Her site is here, go check it out.

p 239. & elsewhere "front room." It's in OED, but in early reference simply indicates the more attractive rooms in the front of a structure, probably for public use. I don't think it refers to the large gathering place in a contemporary house. "Sitting Room" or even "parlor" would be a workable substitute for that.

This accords with the meaning I intend. I get the same subtext from 'front room' that Franzeka talks about. My Southern aunts had a 'front room' where they received guests.

The 'front room' at Meeks Street is a stiff, over-decorated room at the front. It's deliberately uncomfortable ... used to discourage visitors. The agents relax in the study upstairs or in the library on the ground floor. I'll keep 'sitting room' and 'parlor' in mind for talking about the rooms they use to congregate in.


page 249: Turkish robe; did you find that somewhere? I found an early 20th century reference to Turkish toweling, but not to a robe. "chenille" wouldn't work, either..

I have been thinking lately of circa 1800 bath towels,
in which I am now a very minor expert.

I have a reference to 'Turkish towel' in Night Scenes of City Life by DeWitt Talmadge, pub. 1801,
To whit: "Brisk criticism is a coarse Turkish towel with which every public man needs every day to be rubbed down, in order to keep healthful circulation." There seem to be other solid refs to this sort of Turkish towel in the early decades of the 1800s.

I am delighted to know they had hefty decent towels because huck towels just don't do it for me.
Anyhow. I feel that I have the towels. Future scenes in baths can include this detail.

I suppose one could arguably make a robe of this cloth. It's not beyond likelihood.
But in the time frame 'Turkish robe' seems to be ... y'know ... a caftan. Or a long robe of about any kind. Generally fancy.

I suppose I could squeak thought if I pretend my 'Turkish robe' is just a robe made of velvet or something and not necessarily made of toweling ...

OK. OK. My bad. When I say 'Turkish robe' I should know what I mean.


p 242: "land mines" 1890 in OED; seems to indicate a sophistication of mechanized warfare not available in early 19th century. Did you find it in your research?

Criminy. Yes.
I don't know what I was thinking ...


p. 249: "bedspread" per OED, orig US, 1845; anything else would work, sheet, coverlet, blanket, quilt, etc.

It may be in Ralph Waldo Emerson, 'Journals' in 1833.
But it does not seem to be an early 1800 word.

Who knew?
This one is like 'sweater'. Totally blindsides me.


p. 263: "linden tree" more commonly called "lime tree" in Britain. (I learned this the hard way, trying to find a tree that bloomed in late summer.)

I feel ok about this one. There's lots of refs to 'Linden tree' in the early decades of the 1800s so it was a common alternate name.

No way I'm going to use 'lime tree'. I'd put in poplars or something. Or modern sculpture. Or electrical pylons.


p. 275: "suicide" as a verb, 1841, sounds very contemporary and edgy.

The line is ...
Maggie scowled. "You will be satisfied, I suppose, if she suicides herself to escape you."

So it's meant to be, not so much modern, as French. From the verb se suicider. Thus the reflexive 'suicides herself'.

I thought of it because Dorothy Sayers used it.

Adrian's Story

Claire Emerson writes --

Since you brought up Adrian -

What are your latest thoughts on writing him a book of his own? I'm following your deliberations on this with great interest. He's a marvelous creation and I'd love to read more of him, but, like you, I have some difficulty imagining his heroine or HEA.

And, if Adrian's story isn't next (after Doyle/Maggie)... do you know yet what is?


I'm up to my gills in MAGGIE right now. Adrian -- for me -- is twelve. He's dirty and skinny and one of his knees got dislocated a while back. I haven't decided whether it's his left knee or his right. Do you have a preference?

He's not just a bundle of joy to those around him.

Since I'm holding Adrian so firmly in front of me as an angry, dangerous pre-teen, it's difficult to see him as the more complex and thoughtful, (still dangerous,) man he becomes.

When I get to the end of the MAGGIE story, I'll know whether I can visualize Adrian's HEA.
I hope I'm working on it in the back of my head all that time.

I don't know right now if ADRIAN will be the story directly after MAGGIE. There might be one intervening story. But I think the one after that would have to be ADRIAN.

Tech Tops -- Yet More Best of the Worst -- #3

Yet more 100 Best of Worst Writing Mistakes. This is about the third post on this.


Said. Speaking with motion.

Not -- "You're a fool," she sniffed.
"The electron spin coefficient isn't transitive," he chortled. (Just try chortling that.)
"Nobody owns pomeranians any more," he sobbed.

But -- "You're a fool." She sniffed.
"The electron spin coefficient isn't transitive." He chortled.
"Nobody owns pomeranians any more." He sobbed.

Some folks get excited about this business of speaking through a chortle. You see them on the edge of grammar discussions, jumping up and down, red in the face.
They're right, of course.
But they're akin to those fiercely literal people who insist a character, outside of science fiction, cannot drop her voice or run her eyes around the room. God only knows what they make of Mark Anthony borrowing ears.

Logically, you do not speak and laugh at the same time. Nor do you laugh in words.

In practice, for most of these, not one reader in a thousand will notice and those who do mostly won't care.

If you're the sort of person who shovels snow off the driveway even if don't plan to use the car, then be stringent. Do not laugh in words nor allow your characters to do so.
If you're of the school of thought that waits till you need to go to the store before you shovel the drive,
because the snow might melt, after all,
then you might decide to be wildly idiomatic and figurative and just chortle your words.


Yoda-isms.

There is no 'try'. There is only 'do'.

Instead of the wishywashy -- tried, wanted, intended, wished, thought, planned, prepared, set out to, waited to, started to, began -- give the concrete action.

Not -- Harvey planned to rob the stagecoach.
But – Harvey rented a racing mule for his stagecoach robbery.


Not -- Jennifer wanted to be a ballerina.
But – Jennifer took Saturday ballet classes.
(This is another example of saying-and-conveying, btw. Where the concrete action conveys the emotions or motivation, we don't have to both show it and spell it out.)


Not -- The three musketeers began fishing for their hats.
But -- The three musketeers fished their hats out of the fountain.


Not -- Jonas tried to catch the kite.
But -- Jonas grabbed at the kite and missed.


Yoda-ism are a specific example of the larger problem of
Failure to commit.

Enough with the tentative already. Let the narration, (and the characters,) eschew a polite, neutral, noncommittal view of the world and take a bloody declarative stand. Grasp the bull by the horns and put his shoulder to the grindstone.

Not -- Marion started to squeak. Pamela began to unpeel. George was going to erupt.
But -- Marion squeaked. Pamela unpeeled. George erupted.


Not – It seemed unfair.
But -- It was unfair.

Not -- Julian looked miserable and his poor spirits infected us all.
But -- Julian's misery infected us all.

Not -- In a way, Clyde was cruelly misinformed.
But -- Clyde was cruelly misinformed

Not -- Betty helped with the show by making paper doilies.
But -- Betty made paper doilies for the show.

Not -- It was as if the mountain fell inward like a book of many pages folding together.
But -- The mountain fell inward like a book of many pages folding together.


Major action in subordinate phases.

Oh. Go ahead and do it if you want. Put your major action in a dependent clause sucked on the sentence with some participial. There is nothing wrong with putting important action into a subordinate clause.

But think of all that it-doesn't-cost-anything strength and simplicity and emphasis and prominence up there in the independent clause just going to waste.

As a general rule, put the more important action in the main clause.
Don't stick the whole point of your paragraph in some gerund phrase just to vary the sentence structure or some other damn fool thing like that.

Not -- While Maurice strangled Franny, rain dripped outside the window and the radio played Ten In a Row without commercial interruption.
But -- Maurice strangled Franny. Rain dripped outside the window and the radio played Ten In a Row without commercial interruption.
Or -- Maurice strangled Franny while rain dripped outside the window and the radio played Ten In a Row without commercial interruption.

Not -- Bells tolled midnight as the vampire looked out over the sleeping city and meticulously planned an intricate revenge.
But -- Bells tolled midnight. The vampire looked out over the sleeping city and meticulously planned an intricate revenge.
Or -- The vampire looked out over the sleeping city and meticulously planned an intricate revenge as the bells tolled midnight.


Not -- 'Showing' is superior to 'telling', as Thor's hammer proved, flattening another pesky critic.
But -- Thor's hammer flattened another pesky critic, demonstrating the superiority of 'showing' over 'telling'.



Sentences -- Starting with 'and' and 'but'.

This is Rule 672 on the Standard Lists. This makes me just want to say, 'Down with the Tyrany of the Standard List! Start sentences with AND. Do it! Do it! Do it!'

So don't approach 'and' or 'but' at the start of a sentence with a knee-jerk, 'Awooga. Awooga.'

I'd call this one of the things not to do by accident. Like going down a one-way street. Only do this after carefully considering all the outcomes and if there's a police cruiser on your tail.

The leading 'and' or 'but' will show up nicely on the old universal search of the late draft manuscript. Reconsider your crop.
-- Is your conjunction in search of a compound sentence?
-- Does removing 'and' or 'but' leave the meaning quite thoroughly intact?
-- Are you drifting into run-on territory? The manic imp that leads us to the folly of run-on sentences delights in the insertion of unneeded 'ands' at the head of otherwise innocuous sentences.

Not -- He was a fool. And as a grammarian, he knew better. And in this case, he was entirely wrong.
But -- He was a fool. As a grammarian, he knew better. In this case, he was entirely wrong.
Or maybe -- He was a fool, a grammarian who knew better, and, in this case, he was entirely wrong.

Final important consideration. The leading 'and' softens the impact of that sentence. Do you want a strong sentence? Strip the 'and' off.

Not -- He was forcing her to accept him or run. And he knew she didn't have the strength to run.
But -- He was forcing her to accept him or run. He knew she didn't have the strength to run.




Flabby verbs.

Story is action. However lovely the painted backdrop, we look at the actors.
Action is verbs.

One of the very first Great Standard Truths of Writing is 'use interesting and exact words.' Do it always and everywhere. Dior instead of expensive dress. Crepe Suzette instead of dessert.
Nowhere is it more imperative to put down that specific and colorful word than when we come to the verb,

Not -- ran, moved, pulled, sat.
But -- jogged, hitched one foot up on the rung of the chair, overturned, lounged.


Two verbs -- 'to have' and 'to be' -- do yeoman service in our sentences. They are the strongest and simplest verbs.
Value them for their invisible strength and unobtrusive integrity and use them often.

They can also be weak verbs.

A good late-draft activity is to reassess instances of has, had, and was used as predicates.
Now,
(grammar alert here -- totally unneeded for most folks,)
in most cases, has, had, and was are auxiliary verbs that can be left entirely alone to go about their proper business.

He had failed, she was fishing, they have given up, are forms of the verbs 'to fail', 'to fish', and the phrasal verb, 'to give up'.

The has, had, and was in those sentences are not forms of the verbs 'to have' or 'to be'.


But when has, had, and was are the verbs 'to be' and 'to have',
give them another thought or two.
Is there a stronger sentence structure?
Is there a neighboring verb you like better?

Look especially at 'to have' and 'to be' in any combination with a pronoun, or words like 'there', 'that', and 'which'.

Not -- It was a dark and stormy night. Lightning flashed.
But -- Lightning flashed through the dark and story night.


Not -- There were any number of problems associated with the trapping of a werewolf. Janine knew this.
But -- Janine approached the werewolf-trapping problem with a combination of hope and disbelief.


Not -- It had been a long journey out of the pit. Marguerite broke the videocamera and ate several of the smaller scientists.
But -- The long journey out of the pit was enlivened by Marguerite's clash with the videocamera and her habit of eating the smaller scientists.

(Hmmm ... I don't think that one is actually an improvement. There's an example of the verb 'to be' earning its keep, giving us cadence and emphasis.)

Not -- Mathew's fits were intermittent but spectacular, throwing the operating theatre into chaos.
But -- Mathew's fits, intermittent but spectacular, threw the operating theatre into chaos.

Not -- There were six unicorns in the lineup, but the maiden couldn't identify the culprit.
But -- The maiden studied the six unicorns in the lineup, but couldn't identify the culprit.