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We writers know: it’s not all about what you say but how you say it. In creative writing, this is known as your voice.
In addition to your story’s riveting plot, compelling characters, and vivid setting, your story’s voice creates a wholly original reading experience for the audience. Many describe voice as your unique stamp on a piece of work.
Your writing voice manifests in multiple ways. It encompasses your writing’s tone, sentence structure, vocabulary, point of view, and more. Your voice can also be active or passive.
If you’ve received critiques lambasting your use of passive voice without actually explaining what that means and why it’s “bad,” this blog post is for you. Learn what active and passive voices are and how to use both to your advantage while writing.
Passive vs. active voice: What is it?
To fully understand passive and active voice, let’s quickly refresh some grammar rules.
Every complete clause or sentence needs a:
Subject – What or who the sentence is about
Verb – The action a sentence is describing
As long as a sentence contains at least one agreeing subject and verb, it’s considered complete. But you can arrange them in multiple ways for a unique effect. When using active voice, the subject comes before the verb: The subject “does” the action. But in passive voice, the order is flipped: verb followed by subject. The subject is still “doing” the action, but the emphasis falls on the action itself. By shifting focus away from the subject, the sentence becomes “passive.”
Let’s look at an example:
Imagine a writer breaking their favorite pen (absolutely tragic, by the way.) To describe this event actively, you’d write the sentence like this: “The writer broke the pen.” Simple, straightforward, active.
But you can also correctly write the sentence this way: “The pen was broken by the writer.” This is the passive voice. Again, this sentence isn’t wrong, it simply puts more emphasis on the object (the pen) and action (breaking), rather than the subject (the writer). It also requires more words to make the sentence correct (“was broken by” vs “broke”), which changes the rhythm and pace.
Using passive and active voice intentionally
Just because the term “passive voice” sounds derogatory, doesn’t mean you can’t find appropriate times to use it. According to my friends in science, the passive voice was preferred for scientific writing until recently. The passive voice helps the researcher distance themself from their work, offering a more objective, omniscient account of their research findings.
The passive voice can also add something to creative writing—if you employ it intentionally.
Most writers know that dialogue showcases a character’s unique qualities. Along with adlibs and accents, you can use passive voice to add an additional layer of personality and complexity to a character’s speech. For example, a head scientist studying the fallout from an alien attack may speak in passive voice to mimic their research writing. Or a corrupt bureaucrat may speak passively to feign objectivity and shift the blame after a salacious political scandal.
Passive voice also offers many unique opportunities for humor and irony. Writing about a child exploring the town dump with flowery, prosaic, passive voice can subvert a reader’s expectations and give them a good laugh (if this is your intention, of course).
Having a solid understanding of passive voice and using it with purpose will enhance your writing. Same goes for active voice.
Unlike my science friends, I almost exclusively use active voice in my copywriting. The main goal of marketing emails and blog posts is to directly engage the reader (and potential consumer) and encourage them to buy a brand’s product or seek their services. Active voice puts the reader first, making my copy direct and personal.
You can use active voice intentionally in the same ways you use passive voice. Perhaps you have a character who speaks plainly and assertively—use active voice for their dialogue. Or maybe you want to play with a simple and straightforward writing style—active voice will build a sturdy foundation.
Practicing passive and active voice: An easy exercise
To improve your passive and active voice recognition and usage, try this quick writing exercise:
Take a scene from your current project. Mark all instances of passive and active voice. Then, rewrite the scene using only active voice. Next, try writing it using only passive voice. How do these changes affect the scene? The pace, the dialogue, the action descriptions? Repeat as often as you’d like!
When your next critique rolls around, and people are still pointing out every single instance of passive voice as bad, you can politely explain how you purposefully employed it for the sake of your writing’s intent. Everyone’s writing will improve when they can accurately identify passive and active voice—and when they’re being used successfully.
About the author:
Lindsey is almost always writing, whether it’s a short story, copywriting project, Writer’s Workout blog post, or carefully crafted Instagram comment. With the spare time she digs out of the couch cushions, she’s usually crocheting, adventuring with her friends, or thinking about how she should be reading more. She splits her time between Upstate New York, where she grew up, and Boston, where she'll continue to grow.