Voice: Active and Passive by Shonell Bacon
By APOOO • May 31st, 2009 • Category: The Write Life for You •
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Becoming a Lifelong Learner of the Craft of Writing
By author, editor, educator Shōn Bacon aka ChickLitGurrlTM
Voice: Active and Passive
Back in October, I talked about verbs and the importance of ACTION in a story.
Let me pause to explain that by “action” I don’t mean high-speed chases and gunfights. In thinking about “action,” we’re looking at what characters do, how they perform, how they act.
Readers want immediacy in a story; they want to see characters that act, not characters that are acted upon.
This idea of “action” brings us to active voice and passive voice.
When a subject (character) acts or performs the main verb, we have active voice.
Examples:
Susan left Dan’s house, telling herself she was done with the relationship.
- Susan (subject) is doing the leaving (verb).
Brett tagged his brother in the face, breaking his nose.
- Brett (subject) is doing the tagging (verb).
When a subject (character) is acted upon, we have passive voice.
Examples:
Stella was killed by the angry mob.
- Stella (subject) is not doing anything in this sentence; she is being acted upon (was killed)…by something (the mob).
The letter was mailed by the man.
- The letter (subject) is not doing anything in this sentence; it is being acted upon (was mailed)…by something (the man).
Overall, active voice is preferred over passive voice because active voice shows immediacy, action. However, this isn’t to say you should never use passive voice.
If a writer needs to emphasize action instead of emphasizing the doer of the action, the writer might choose to use passive voice.
For example, a suspect being questioned (action) might be more important than the doer of the action (the police); therefore, you might write:
The suspect was questioned for nearly ten hours by the police.
It is always important to have sentence variety in a story to aid in a story’s rhythm and flow; because of this, a writer might use passive voice simply to create variety in a piece.
Also, if the doer of the action is unknown, unwanted, or unneeded, the writer may opt to use the passive voice.
In the sentence, The votes have been tallied, there isn’t a needed to know who tallied the votes, so we can leave the doer out of the sentence.
In the end, it’s important for you – especially during your revision/rewriting process – to read your work for passive and active voice. Having a solid story is important, but just as important is having a story that has rhythm, flow, and characters that act.
Thanks for checking me out @ The Write Life for You; come back next month – I’ll be talking about CAPITALIZATION.
ChickLitGurrl ~ signing out
Shōn
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Thanks for stopping by, Chris, and you’re right about the confusion. In teaching freshman composition, I always had a time trying to get my students to realize “was” didn’t not necessarily denote passive voice.
Well said!
I’m glad that you used sentence content as your indicator for active vs. passive. A surprising number of people believe that the presence of a linking verb (was, were, are) indicates the passive voice, and it isn’t necessarily so. English also uses those linking verbs to denote the progressive and continuous aspects of active verbs (“Sandy is paying this time”, “Marie was gripping the wheel tighter with each word”). (More than one reader has criticized me for using “the passive voice” where I’d actually used the progressive, so it’s a pet peeve.
Thanks for another informative writing lesson. I still struggle with this. I realize that I speak in a passive voice which may account for my writing as such.
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Thanks, Jennifer, Dera, for your comments. You know, Jennifer, it’s important to have general knowledge of these things as you write because it helps in having less editing and “bad” (subjectively, of course) writing in a first draft. All that specific, major knowledge is crucial in the editing/revising stages – stages that all writers should practice being proficient in before submitting a work to an editor.
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You know I’m always learning some thing new from these monthly updates. I’m not sure if I have passive vs, active down yet, but I’m certain with time I’ll get a tad bit better. Thanks for your wisdom.
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