The Writer's Guide to a Good Story

Active and Passive Voice

I'm sure you guys must have heard your english teacher explain this to you. Or maybe you heard someone else talking about it. Quite possibly, you had a textbook thrown at your head while a frustrated adult tried to explain them to you. Maybe you were playing Dumb Ways to Die, or drawing a picture of said english teacher being electrocuted, etc. But one way or another, you didn't quite catch what they were saying to you about active or passive voice.

That's okay. I am here to save the day. (It rhymes!)

What is active voice?

Well, most of you probably already use this in your stories. It's basically when the subject is doing the action. So in other words, active sentences are quick, precise, and explain what is happening to the subject as a result of the action being taken on them.

For example:

"Cam scarfs down thousands of oreos."

"Billy eats the textbook."

"The rooster climbs on the cafeteria table.'

So basically, typical things that happen during the day. 

Like in the first sentence, Cam is the subject and is doing the action. The oreos are the object of the sentence. They're being scarfed down by Cam.

Why am I talking in third person about me? This is weird. Anyway, moving on.

What is passive voice?

In passive voice, things are basically kind of flipped around. Basically, the sentence is now about the object, instead of the subject.

Like this:

"Thousands of oreos are being scarfed down by Cam."

"The textbook is being eaten by Billy."

"The cafeteria table is being climbed on by the rooster."

See the difference? The subject of the first sentence are the oreos. But they're not doing anything. They're just being eaten by Cam. I mean me. Sorry, by me. Basically, that's the problem some people have with passive voice. 

Consider the following:

"The bullet ripped through Billy's heart."

"Billy's heart was ripped through by the bullet."

The second was passive voice. People don't think these kinds of sentences are likely to catch the eye. They're usually more drawn out, and sometimes are unnessesarily long for what can be said in fewer words. This is especially true of action stories. It wastes words that you could use to keep the story moving along.

In both sentences, Billy was shot. (Sorry for making it so gory. I feel like I always use the name Billy, and something bad always has to happen to him. Poor kid)

The first sentence only uses six words, and the second uses eight. Both sentences are basically saying the same thing. If this is the kind of story where a lot of action happens at the same time, why use longer sentences, really? Besides that, with active voice, you know who or what the action is going to happen to before having to read the rest of the sentence.

On the other hand, passive voice isn't always bad. Sometimes it's better to use if you aren't sure who is doing the action, or who the subject is. If you were writing a formal report on a robbery, for example, you probably wouldn't say "someone robbed the store," but rather, "the store was robbed."

Passive voice can also be used if you want to emphasize what or who the action is happening to. Like instead of saying "Someone shot Cam," you might say "Cam was shot," and it doesn't really take away from the story. Instead of focusing on the someone that shot me, you'd focus on me, and the fact that I was shot. And me being focused on is always good, right?

Just kidding.

Maybe if someone stole something and you wanted to emphasize that, and what was being stolen, you could say "The nutella was stolen." rather than "Someone stole the nutella."

(I stole the nutella guys. Shh, don't tell!)

So to sum that up, passive voice is best used when:

-You don't know who or what performed the action

-You want to focus a sentence on a particular word or subject

Understanding passive and active voice is really important to writing. If you tend to use them in the wrong places, it will make your writing awkward or it won't flow well. Just be sure you know that neither voice is better than the other overall. It's just that sometimes active voice is better suited to a situation than passive voice, and vice versa. 

But common sense will tell you when you use active and passive voice most of the time. Really, just think about how you'd say something in real life.

If your mom asked if you were done with your homework, (most of you are probably procrastinating right now), then you wouldn't say "My homework is being by me," would you?