Another opening vent

I have to do it again. Can't use was or had. How in hell do you do a short flashback without had. And as a reader I still don't see what is so bad with using was, had etc..


Sometimes using active verbs makes it a touch better, but not all the time, but so what? It's just a touch better like spending an extra ten hours on a forty hour job building a house, just to add a bit of fancy scroll work above the front door. It looks sightly better but is it really worth all that extra pain and work?

Evidently editors think so.