For eliminating adverbs, I found that almost half the time, I can take away the adverb and it has little affect on the sentence. Other times, I can use a different verb (I prefer to use verbs, however, that most people understand) or reword the phrase in a different way.
Taking out "was" verbs presents more of a challenge, as this tends to require changing the whole sentence.
Overall, this has helped strengthen my writing, although it does not do everything. For example, other issues include using too many other inactive verbs or indirect speech, etc..
The irony is that although it has helped me, many of the best writers use "to be" verbs and adverbs. Now some of these only use them sparingly, but they do use them. And of course these writers have a lot of experience and know how to make it work.
For example, Roald Dahl, one of my most loved writers, used them quite a bit. The first chapter of James and the Giant Peach last about three pages. I counted about 23 past "to be" verbs and 6 adverbs. Describing things using words like "was/were" occurs quite a bit. That being said, it does not affect how I feel about the writing and I love the storyline.
Other writers I like also use these sort of words such as J.K. Rowling, Jim Butcher, Philip Pullman, Gregory Maguire and many others use these sort of words. I suppose the issue has always been to know exactly when and how to use them.
