Active vs Passive Voice.

Active vs Passive voice is a small yet important writing element to master, and once it’s found and identified, can elevate your fiction or non-fiction writing higher than you would expect.

This writing element discusses the usage of a subject in an English sentence acting upon a verb.

“Daniel mailed the letter”

In this case, Daniel (the subject) is doing the mailing (the verb), and is thus acting upon the verb.

Because the subject “acts upon” the verb, this sentence is in active voice.

“The letter was mailed by Daniel”

Here, it is instead the subject that is being acted upon by the verb. This is passive voice.

Nine times out of ten, you want to be writing in active voice, as the subject should be the main focus and the sentence flows better allowing it to be read and understood easier.

The letter is also classified as the (direct object) and whether or not it is in the sentence can affect whether or not you can swap the sentence between active and passive voice, like how I just did before.

“The hedgehog lived in the forest”

This sentence can’t be changed to passive voice (fortunately) because there is no direct object to act upon.

Point being, passive voice adds more words than is necessary and can sometimes be hard to read or understand clearly.

The main takeaway is that the doer of the action (Daniel) should be at the forefront of the sentence and performing an action/verb (mailed) to the receiver of the action (letter)

Active voice:

Daniel    mailed    the    letter

 (doer)   (action)        (receiver)

Passive voice:

The    letter   was   mailed   by   Daniel

       (receiver)       (action)         (doer)

Understanding the positions of these terms can help you spot passive voice wherever it may appear.

Exceptions for when you can use passive are when:

1.       The doer of the action is made unknown or not needed

 “An anonymous thief stole the car”

2.       You, the writer, want to put more emphasis or focus on the action rather than the subject.

“Someone stole a car last week”.

Or if you just want to add some variety to your writing.

I hope this short and sweet read helps!

Thank you for reading and have a beautiful day!

• Daniel