Keep It Active

If someone asked me to identify the single most important area that needed to be addressed to improve writing, without any hesitation I would point to the need to maintain active voice. For new writers, it can be difficult to spot statements in the passive voice, but using the wrong voice can be the difference between a reader having fun and a reader having to plow through your prose.

Only use passive voice if you intentionally wish to create distance between the actor and the action.

So what’s the difference between active and passive voice? A simple distinction is: active voice has the subject of a sentence as the actor while passive voice is when the action happens to the subject. This is perhaps more easily seen with a quick example:

Active voice: John hit the ball.

Passive voice: The ball was hit by John.

If we examine just the content of the two example sentences we see that they convey the same information. There are two objects (John and the ball) and one action (hit). In the first, the subject is John; in the second, the subject is the ball. With that knowledge, you can see how in the active voice the subject does the action, and in the passive voice the action is done to the subject.

We can make some generalizations based on the example sentences too. First, notice that the active voice example is shorter. This is because to express something in passive voice, you often have to add a lot of helpers to the text. In the above example, we had to add “was” to the verb and the preposition “by” to John. Also note that the “by” is ambiguous in the second sentence. The first interpretation is that John is who hit the ball, but it is also possible to interpret the sentence as saying a second person (perhaps Mary) hit the ball so that it went next to John (i.e., the active version would be “Mary hit the ball by John.”). The first sentence is easier to understand as there is no ambiguity about who did the action.

Nevertheless, many new writers tend to use a lot of passive sentences. I think part of this is subconscious. New writers tend to be less sure of their skill, and that hesitance bleeds through in their voice. But I also think that passive language can easily be mistaken for “flowery” or “poetic” language, and therefore inexperienced authors think their writing sounds more masterful if they include a lot of passive tones. Sadly, all the passive voice does is to put a layer of separation between the reader and the text.

New writers tend to be less sure of their skill, and that hesitance bleeds through in their voice.

You can see this due to the fact that if someone wishes to avoid responsibility for an action without lying, he will use the passive voice. Consider the case of an inmate describing why he is in jail. He may say, “John and I were in a fight and John was stabbed.” In this instance, the inmate seeks to create a cushion between his actions and his responsibility. “I stabbed John” takes ownership of the action, whereas “John was stabbed” leaves it vague as to how exactly John ended up with a knife in his stomach, and if you’re seeking to avoid responsibility then you don’t mind putting ambiguity in the mind of the listener.

Passive voice creates similar separation in fiction. But as an author, you want to convey your message. You don’t want the reader to have to guess what it is. This is especially critical if you’re writing suspense or action fiction.

In the end, only use passive voice if you intentionally wish to create distance between the actor and the action (for example, it may be appropriate to use if you're describing a dream sequence). At all other times, live by the maxim: Keep it active.