In the world of writing blogs, I see passive writing and passive voice discussed as synonymous. They aren’t!
While passive writing is to be avoided as much as possible, there are times when passive voice is the only tool available.
Passive Voice
Take a moment and access your memory banks for elementary school grammar lessons. Basic sentence structure is subject – verb – direct object. Active voice construction is when the subject directly performs the action on the object.
I (the one taking action) wrote (action performed) the short story Mystery on Maple Hill (recipient of the action, aka direct object).
In passive voice, the construction is backwards; the recipient of the action is in the position of subject and the one performing that action comes later, often in a prepositional phrase.
The short story (recipient of action) was written (acted on) by me (the actor, but within a prepositional phrase). This is in passive voice.
Here are a few more examples:
The party chairman accused Obamacare of failing. (active)
Accusations were made by the party chairman about the failure of Obamacare. (passive. Politicians like passive voice because it makes the sentence sound formal, and it can obscure the message.)
Bureaucratic language aside, passive voice is not grammatically incorrect. But it’s awkward, weakens your verbs, and often adds unnecessary words.
Fixing Passive Voice
Identify where passive voice occurs in your story.
She was playing the piano. (active voice, but passive writing)
The piano was played by her. (passive voice)
Confessions were made. (passive voice)
Examine the verb in your sentence and ask, “Who is performing this action?” If the who is missing from the sentence or is elsewhere in the sentence, you have passive voice.
Rewrite your sentence and put the actor – action – recipient in that order.
Because passive voice makes your writing weak, you may be asking is it ever okay to use it? Yes!
In writing for newspapers or magazines, the recipient of the action may be more newsworthy than the one who performed the action.
The three-year-old little boy was abducted by a neighbor.
The neighbor did the abducting, but the three-year-old child is the more important fact and, therefore, takes precedence.
Sometimes as you’re writing, you may not know who or what performed the action. This forces you to construct a sentence in passive voice.
According to statistics, 1 in 4 girls is sexually abused before she turns 18.
Passive voice can also be used as a stylistic device in fiction (and non-fiction). Lauren Kessler and Duncan McDonald state in their book When Words Collide: “Purposefully obscuring or taking away prominence from the doer might create suspense.”
And suspense in fiction is a good thing. It keeps readers reading. But Kessler and McDonald also state to use this passive voice technique “conservatively and appropriately.”
As the writer, you decide whether the subject or the direct object of your sentence is more important.
Passive Writing
Passive writing is also known as telling. Yes, I’m talking about that common phrase show don’t tell that writers hear nearly every day.
Passive writing is weak writing. It merely tells rather than shows the reader what happened.
She was playing the piano. (telling)
Her chubby fingers pounded the piano keys. (showing—dramatically different and elicits a specific picture in your mind)
Both sentences are in active voice—the subject is performing an action on something. But the first is telling/passive writing because it lacks descriptive action.
Passive voice and passive writing are not incorrect grammar. But they tend to bore your reader. Learning what each is and when to use it will make you a stronger writer.
To learn more about telling and showing, read “Telling vs. Showing, what it is and how to fix it.”
Questions? Having issues identifying or reworking something? Leave your comments below.