100 ways to improve your writing - Gary Provost 2019
Use the active voice . . . Most of the time
Twelve ways to give your words power
When a verb is in the active voice, the subject of the sentence is also the doer of the action.
The sentence “John picked up the bag” is in the active voice because the subject, John, is also the thing or person doing the action of “picking up.”
The sentence “The bag was picked up by John” is in the passive voice because the subject of the sentence, bag, is the passive receiver of the action.
Generally the active voice makes for more interesting reading, and it is the active voice that you should cultivate as your normal writing habit. The active voice strikes more directly at the thought you want to express, it is generally shorter, and it holds the reader closer to what you write because it creates a stronger sense that “something is happening.”
Listen to how the following passive voice sentences are improved when they are turned into the active voice.
Passive |
Active |
Dutch drawings and prints are what this book is about. |
This book is about Dutch drawings and prints. |
The lightbulb was screwed in crookedly by the electrical engineer. |
The electrical engineer screwed in the lightbulb crookedly. |
An even break should never be given to a sucker. |
Never give a sucker an even break. |
Try to use the active voice. But realize that there are times when you will need to use the passive. If the object of the action is the important thing, then you will want to emphasize it by mentioning it first. When that’s the case, you will use the passive voice.
Let’s say, for example, that you want to tell the reader about some strange things that happened to your car. In the active voice it would look like this:
Three strong women turned my car upside down on Tuesday. Vandals painted my car yellow and turquoise on Wednesday. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration launched my car into orbit around the moon on Thursday.
The example shown above is not wrong, but it sounds choppy. To give the story a flow, you would want to use the passive voice, keeping the emphasis on your car:
On Tuesday my car was turned upside down by three strong women. On Wednesday my car was painted yellow and turquoise by vandals. On Thursday my car was launched into orbit around the moon by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
In the passive voice, the car is given emphasis, and the story about what happened to it has a flow and rhythm lacking in the first example.