Does your story feel detached or distant? Are readers just not connecting with what you’ve written in the way you want them to?
Then you may have a problem with passive voice!
During the last stream, at the request of several viewers, we went over the passive voice versus the active voice.
We started off by explaining what they are, how to identify them, and why you generally want to avoid the passive in your own writing.
See the whole process here or scroll down for the highlights.
What is Active Voice?
- Subject-Verb-Object
- I eat cheese.
The girl drew a picture.
Logan bought basketballs. - (The focus is on the SUBJECT: “I, the girl, Logan”)
What is Passive Voice?
- Object-Verb-Subject
- Cheese is eaten by me.
A picture was drawn by the girl.
Basketballs were bought by Logan. - (The focus is on the OBJECT: “cheese, picture, basketballs”)
How to Identify the Passive
- “am/are/is/was/were/being” + past tense verb
“Cheese is eaten by me.” - Subject doesn’t exist/is at end
“The cheese was stolen.” (no subject)
“The cheese was stolen by Bob.” (subject is at end) - “There are/was/were” *
“There were many different cheeses.”
(*not technically passive, but has the same issues)
Why Passive isn’t Great
- Passive is wordier/clunkier, active is tighter
(Passive) “The cheese was stolen by Bob” (6 words)
(Active) “Bob stole the cheese.” (4 words)
Your story will be 10-30% thicker if you use a lot of passive.
- Passive is vague, active is specific
(Passive) “The boulder was lifted from the front of the cave.”
How? Who did it? Using what?
(Active) “The crane grabbed onto the boulder and lifted it from the front of the cave.”
- Passive is more distant/airy, active forces you to be descriptive
(Passive) “Cries could be heard in the distance.”
(Active) “Cries from the townfolk rumbled like dying thunder in the distance.”
When to Use Passive
- To keep the subject unknown/anonymous
“It seems my lunch was taken from the break room fridge.”
“Mistakes were made.”
- When the subject is unimportant
“The building was constructed in 1999.” (The subject that built it is unimportant)
“She was diagnosed with cancer.” (The doctor who diagnosed it is unimportant)
- Emphasize the object
“My lunch was stolen.” vs. “Somebody stole my lunch.”
Passive emphasizs your lunch being gone, active emphasizes that someone stole it.
After going over that together, we wrote a story ONLY using passive. Chat voted that we write this plot: You keep you amazon echo in your pocket and it whispers you bad advice on dates.
Here’s out passive-only version:
The Amazon echo was put into my pocket before the date. But now, the decision was regretted.
“If a large, fatty meal is ordered, she will be impressed,” was said by the Amazon Echo. “She needs to be shown how generous you are.”
Such a meal was ordered by me, and yet when the table was filled with steaming burgers and milkshakes, expressions of joy were not seen on her face. The disappointment was clearly expressed in her eyes.
“What on Earth was thought by you?” I was asked by her. “All this food cannot be finished by us!”
“It was ordered for you,” was said by me. “I wanted my thoughtfulness to be shown to you.”
“All that’s being shown to me is you thinking I’m fat,” I was yelled at by her. Her napkin was thrown to the ground, and the restaurant was left by her storming feet.
A voice was heard from my pocket.
“She can be forgotten. You will always be loved by me. Now, let’s not allow your wonderful meal to be wasted. Together, it can be eaten by us.”
And here’s the same story in active voice:
I put the Amazon echo into my pocket before the date. But now, I regretted the decision.
“If you order a large, fatty meal, she will be impressed,” said the Amazon Echo. “Show her how generous you are.”
I ordered such a meal, and yet when the steaming burgers and milkshakes arrived, she was not exactly overjoyed. Her eyes crinkled in disappointment.
“What on Earth were you thinking?” she asked. “We can’t finish all this food!”
“I ordered it for you,” I said. “I wanted to show you my thoughtfulness.”
“All you’re showing me is that you think I’m fat,” she yelled. Throwing her napkin to the ground, she stormed out of the restaurant.
A voice came from my pocket.
“Forget about her. I will always love you. Now, let’s not allow your wonderful meal to go to waste. We can eat it. Together.”
The passive-only version is not only pretty miserable, but it’s also 25% longer than the active version. So not only are you hurting your reader if you use too much passive, you’re also making them miserable for longer!
Even though the passive-only version is an extreme example, it’s still good to be aware of when you use passive in your own writing. While you may not be bludgeoning your reader’s head like the above story, you may be giving them little paper cuts as they read that will add up over time.
After that, viewer joe_g89 that we write this prompt: “I’d like you to select your favorite of the seven deadly sins and create something that encapsulates that sin.”
Here’s what I came up with for envy:
What can I say? I’m an envious man. When Bob Thomas next door pulled his new Lamborghini into his driveway, then stood out smiling and waving at me, I put on a plastered grin as acid pumped through my veins.
I was going to get my own Lambo, no matter what sacrifices needed to be made. And my family was going to help.
The first thing to go was the heat. Damn heating bill was almost two-hundred dollars a month. In just a year, that’d be over a tenth of the Lamborghini’s cost just by itself! I shut off the thermostat as my wife, son, and daughter gathered around shivering, grumbling out puffs of frost with every word of protest. I told them to just think about how warm the heating system in our new car would be, and in the meantime, go put on a sweater.
The next thing on the list was electricity. Damn kids and their computers, daughter’s phone, son’s Nintendos, not to mention the blasted fridge, dishwasher, washing machine, and dryer. All together, just the monthly bill alone was a fifth of the car, and that was before we sold all the devices on Craigslist! That sweet Lambo would be parked in my driveway before I knew it.
Of course the family wasn’t happy, but I showed them how relying on so much electricity had driven us apart. Instead of everyone mesmerized by their stupid devices, we sat around together and told stories and read books. Instead of storing food for weeks we never ate in the fridge, we went shopping every day, together, walking to the store and back to save on gas, of course. Sure, not having lights at night was a little inconvenient, but it made us go to bed earlier and be more refreshed in the morning!
And yet the complaining continued. I couldn’t believe it! Here I was, trying to get something nice for our family, while bringing us together in the process, and all they could do was whine about it.
That made the next sacrifice easier.
Looking over the list of monthly expenses, the only big thing left was food. Every month, over a thousand dollars dumped into unappreciative bottomless pits. It was time to make a change.
I slashed the grocery list to the bare minimum. Rice, beans, boxed macaroni and cheese, plus whatever was on sale that day. Dented cans of Spam, expired loaves of bread, and for a treat, a single day old pastry to split between us. I was so excited, but looking at my family’s vacant faces, you’d think I’d sentenced them to death. The ingrates.
After a month, I crunched the numbers. We were making progress, but there was still so much more to be gained from small sacrifices. I immediately stopped buying toilet paper, instead using the free fliers we got in the mail. They were a little moist and tough, but they did the job. Perfect for kindling in the fireplace too.
And the water bill! I couldn’t believe I’d missed it before. I laughed out loud when I realized we were actually paying to pump liquid into our house when it fell from the sky for free! A few buckets outside was all we needed to cancel our plumbing services. Who needs a toilet when you have a shovel, am I right?
Every time I went in the backyard to dig a hole, I caught a glimpse of Bob Thomas, waxing and washing his Lamborghini, blowing a kiss to his wife as he pulled out of the driveway, or just sitting in it and jamming to the tunes on his Rockford Fosgate audio system blaring Sirius radio. Seeing it always sent a buzz of envy through me, but striking the spade of the shovel into the earth made me grin with how close I was getting.
And yet, despite all my sacrifices, would you believe it? The bellyaching continued. My wife, son, daughter, every day was a struggle to survive their complaints. Well, the bellyaching would be a lot harder when there was nothing in their stomachs.
I cut the food budget to zero. The kids got a free meal at school every weekday, and Costco had free samples out the wing wang—and you didn’t even have to be a member to get in! Crab cakes, jalapeno poppers, pumpkin soup. I couldn’t believe I’d wasted so many years of my life paying for food like a chump. That Lamborghini was right on the horizon.
Then, three months in, my daughter had the audacity to get sick. As if we were going to the doctor when we were so close to our goal! I crouched down next to her in her bed, talked to her in her dark, cold room, and told her about all the fun things we’d do once we got the Lambo.
When we found her dead the next morning, I was worried we’d have to pay for a funeral, but it turns out the city will come and collect the corpse for free if you just call them. My wife and son screamed that they’d had enough and they were going to turn me in, so I had no choice but to lock them in the basement when the officials arrived. Thankfully they were so weak that they didn’t make much noise. A week later, they made no noise at all.
But I stayed the course, and I was rewarded. One year after I started on my quest for the Lamborghini, I was in the dealership, being handed the keys to my own car. The dealer gave me a firm handshake and a sympathetic nod, offering condolences for my loss. I thanked him, jingled the keys the whole way to the front seat, and squealed for joy when I turned on the engine.
On the way home, I stopped at the graveyard. I parked the car where the public funeral had taken place months ago, and got out to walk. I strolled up to the small, plain headstones for my family and looked down at them. Just a few feet away were intricately-carved grave markings for other people, marble angels and concrete stars and giant silver crosses. Acid of envy pumped through my veins.
I wanted a headstone like that.
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you. We stream on Twitch every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 6:30pm-10:30pm (U.S. Eastern Standard Time).
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Scott Wilson is the author of the novel Metl: The ANGEL Weapon,
forthcoming March 2019.
Featured image: Pakutaso