The Villainous 3-Letter Word

"Had". It's easy to write making any writer prone to mindlessly incorporate it into their story. But do not be fooled, this small three letter word can impact your story on an incredibly negative level. When I first learned of the negative consequences such a simple and utterly small word like "had" could make thanks entirely to Ann Copeland's book, The ABC's of Writing Fiction I admit I rolled my eyes, until I read a few examples Copeland offered and even then I wasn't entirely convinced. It wasn't until I decided to do a word search in Word's navigation bar locating every usage of 'had' I managed to accumulate in my newest manuscript, and discovered an embarrassing high number, which I will reveal at the end of this post. This prompted me to try an exercise of my own: to find a sentence or two in which I felt could benefit from the elimination of this seemingly inconspicuous word and rewrite it to eliminate "had" from it entirely. After locating and rewriting my first sentence and then my fifth, I realized something--"had" isn't as inconspicuous as I thought. In fact, through its early elimination trial I feel I've managed to greatly improve certain paragraphs.

Not convinced? Let's take a look at one of these trial sentences I've copied right from my current novel, A Fire In the Wind (© 2022). 

Example 1:

Original scene featuring the word "had": 

I studied the book which came out nearly four months before Mother had sold me to the Ghostdragons. “Let’s see what was so important you had to supposedly die over this stupid thing, shall we?” 

Rewritten scene excluding the word "had": 
I studied the book which came out nearly four months before Mother sold me to the Ghostdragons. “Let’s see what was so important you supposedly died over this stupid thing, shall we?” 

Do you see the difference in these two scenes? The first one forces readers to stay locked in the past whereas the rewritten scene propels them forward and allows for forward movement in the story as well. The word 'had' in the first scene also negates a sense of fluidity, forcing the words to be read in a choppy manner. That being said it should be noted that sometimes this word does serve a genuine purpose, but even purposeful, why not try to eliminate it and rewrite a sentence anyways? I have attempted to do so in this next exampled also taken from A Fire in the Wind (©2022): 

Example 2:

Original scene featuring the word "had": 

He crossed his tightly over his chest, his moth slightly agape as if ready to respond except he never had the chance as Jake then walked up to us. 

Rewritten scene excluding the word "had": 
He crossed his tightly over his chest, his moth slightly agape as if ready to respond, though his chance escaped when Jake walked up to us. 

I am entirely guilty of using the word 'had', in excess I should say, but I am working to fix that now, which is to say I should finally define what excess means in my case.

According to a word-search, I have used the word "had" a total of 646 times in my 145 paged manuscript. And that number comes after eliminating and rewriting several sentences containing this useless placeholder, which is ultimately all that this word really is; a placeholder. After realizing how much I've used this word, as per my own exercise and personal challenge I am attempting to eliminate the word 'had' entirely from my current novel. Yes, even when its purpose makes sense. That's not to say I probably won't go back later and write back in a few of those eliminated "had's", but that's a future-me problem. Current-me is excited by this challenge.

And now I challenge you!