Avoid the Passive Voice – Writing Tips

Use the active voice in your writing. This means that the subject of your sentence is doing the action, and the action isn’t being done to it. This means that the subject of your sentence is what is doing what the verb says. Some writers write in the passive voice, meaning that the subject of the sentence is not performing the verb. This creates a weak and a vague sentence. This kind of sentence is less engaging to the reader. Consider this example:

The car was taken to the repair shop.

Who took the car? Did it magically fly to the repair shop by itself? The subject of the sentence was the car, but who was the driving force behind the verb? Who took it to the shop? A far better sentence would be:

Janice took the car to the repair shop.

This sentence is clear. Why? Because if you use the passive voice, you have to explain more. I would need another sentence to get across the meaning that I should have conveyed in the first sentence anyway. Good writing consists of concise information sharing. You want to come to a common understanding with your reader quickly. Otherwise, you run the risk of the reader leaving your writing for something else. If you cheat the reader, the reader will cheat on you. (I couldn’t resist)

How about one more example?

The man was hit over the head with a rusty shovel by his ex-wife Suzanne who was full jealousy and rage. His body was taken to the back yard by her and buried under a pile of leaves.

Yuck! That sentence loses all the drama, and frankly, sounds akward. We need someone to blame directly for this crime. When you put Suzanne as the active owner of the action you will create feeling about Suzanne in the readers mind. You want to create feeling! Its what keeps the reader interested.

Suzanne hit her ex over the head with a rusty shovel. The first time she hit him was out of jealousy, the next time she hit him was out of pure rage. Without changing the expression on her face, she bent over and grabbed his legs by the ankles, and pulled his body under a tree. She used the same bloody shovel to cover the body with the October leaves that surrounded the tree.

In this final example, I added some color. I couldn’t help it! If you think about it, that is the point isn’t it? We want the sentence to come to life, and it did once I started writing in the active voice. Remember, the subject of your sentence is important. In this case, Suzanne. You don’t want the subject to be the dead body. I mean, its dead right? We care about the living! I couldn’t help but keep her in action, and explain a little more as to why she was hitting her ex over the head. Keep the subject of the sentence full of as much action as you can. Don’t use the passive voice.

Happy writing!

Justin