Edit like an Editor: A Wattpad Featured Guide ✔

Part vii. Writing in Passive vs. Active Voice

All writers have to worry about how their writing impacts their readers. Whether you're writing a science-fiction, a thriller, or a romance, you have to write with your intended audience in mind. By thinking about your reader and how you want him or her to react to your work, you create more effective writing.

Understanding the concepts behind active and passive voice will help you become a more effective writer. While this is good practice for all writers, it's crucial for fiction writers. You have to create reality with your words. Your characters, plot, and setting are counting on you to be able to describe them in a forceful, active manner. While using the best voice is important in dialogue, even narrative descriptions can be enhanced by the right language.

Verbs may be in active or passive voice.

Active Voice

In active voice, the verb shows the action of the subject:

• He ate his supper.

• She walked to the store.

• They drove the car off the cliff.

In these examples, the readers can easily figure out who it was that ate, walked, and drove. Active voice makes the action more direct and immediate. It can help you take your characters from place to place without slowing down the pace.

Active voice indicates that the subject of the sentence is doing the action.

• The mice ate the cheese.

• The children tease the dog.

• Mr. Wilson has painted his house several times.

Passive Voice

There are some cases where you have to use passive voice. Usually writers do this with a form of to be:

• She was attacked.

• It is taken care of.

• It will be done.

Sometimes you want to avoid stating who it was that performed the action of the verb. In the first example, maybe you don't want readers to know who it was that attacked her. But more often than not, withholding this information is not intentional.

In this case, see if you can revise the passive voice sentence by figuring out what the subject is: "The killer attacked her in the dark."

Passive voice indicates that the subject receives the action of the verb.

• The cheese was eaten by the mice.

• The dog is teased by the children.

• The house has been painted several times by Mr. Wilson.

Overusing the passive voice creates wordy and weak writing, so use is sparingly. However, on occasion you can use the passive voice for variety or to emphasize the receiver of the action rather than the actor.

Passive voice: The frightened deer was hit by the car. (This sentence emphasizes the deer.)

Active voice: The car hit the frightened deer. (This sentence emphasizes the car.)

See the difference in impact each sentence makes just based on what voice you use?

Passive voice, per say, isn't the worst thing ever; passive sentences aren't technically incorrect, but often they aren't the best way to phrase your thoughts. Active sentences are stronger, usually shorter, and more direct than passive sentences. Sometimes passive voice is awkward, and other times it's vague.

Read carefully through your work when you revise. There are many ways to change passive voice to active voice; to change wordiness into tight writing. Don't forget to look for these opportunities. You don't want your readers to feel disassociated from the story.

Please give this part a vote if you've learned something new!