Be Passive-Aggressive

No, I don't mean leave the dirty dishes on your room-mate's bed every time they bake and don't clean up after themselves.

I mean be passive-aggressive, as in get rid of the passive tone in your writing. Aggressively.

How?

Turf "was" every chance you get.

Its hard to do since you can't erase "was" and still have a coherent sentence. There is rarely a single word substitution, but a little elbow grease never hurt anyone.

Until this morning, this is all I knew: Don't overuse "was." This blog post by Celia Yeary made it clear WHY. I recommend you check it out.