Avoid Passive Voice

If you want your reader to feel emotion and action on the page, avoid writing in passive voice. It creates distance between the characters on the page and your reader, it dilutes the immediacy, and waters down action. The most common culprit is helping verbs.

Passive Voice and Helping Verbs

Ban helping verbs from your writing to eliminate passive voice. That may be a little harsh, but in all honesty helping verbs are the most common indicator that you have slipped into passive voice. When active verbs like take, sing, or walk are aided by a version of the verbs ‘to be’ or ‘to have,’ (also known as helping verbs) it changes the tone of a sentence. I take a test feels more immediate than I am taking a test. I sang off key paints a stronger picture than I was singing off key. And I will walk 20 miles is more impressive than I will be walking 20 miles. In each of these examples the first version is written in active voice while the second uses a helping verb, watering down the action.

Passive Voice Alternatives

Passive voice is appropriate when a subject is being acted upon. For instance, The wound was wrapped in stained bandages, brings attention to the bandages. But if your goal is to bring attention to the wound you might write: Stained bandages protected the oozing wound. Granted I have changed a few words. In both cases, the relationship between the bandages and wound are obvious, but in the first case the bandages are passively wrapped, whereas in the second case the bandages are actively protecting. Note the passive use of ‘was wrapped’ versus the active use of ‘protected’. 

Passive Voice and Full Infinitives

A full infinitive is formed when you put the word ‘to’ in front of the base form of a verb. For example, to be, to sing, to take, to run. How does this manifest as passive voice? Let me show you. George started to run. I want to sing in the choir.

You’ve heard the expression show don’t tell? (see SDT post). The passive voice tells, the active voice shows. Besides cutting back on helping verbs, try to limit verbs preceded by to.

Change

I want to sing in the choir

to:

Singing in the choir fills me with joy.

See how swapping out want to with fills me with joy transforms the sentence from telling to showing?

Limit full infinitives and ban helping verbs from your writing to reap the rewards.