Craft Chat: Passive Voice (Why It's Not Great & How To Fix It) 

FYI guys I took out an example that was awkward but not strictly passive (I still stand by my feelings on it, but it doesn't help those here to learn), but I'm sticking to "causes." It is a passive construction as I shared in my examples. The lesson here should be: indirect writing is often bad! Use it sparingly. Thanks, guys. (this is why I didn't become an English teacher, honestly).

I had a history teacher in high school who hated passive voice, so I wrote an essay exam on the War of 1812 entirely in passive voice.

And, of course, as was already mentioned, there's the exception of dialogue. If a character is a passive or indirect person, they might speak in passive voice. Same with other things like sentence fragments and purple prose.

Would love more craft chat videos! I'm actually guilty of starting too many sentences with a simple *Subject verbed the object* construction, and in editing I have to throw in different clauses and mix things around so that my story isn't just a list that reads 'She did A. She did B. She did C.She did D.'

Phew I haven't been using this I remember having a English lesson on this and have been writing in active ever since.

Okay, I've checked out several (and frankly enjoyed) of your "Craft Chat" videos. This is NO exception, as I like to refresh even where I "should know" whatever it is you're talking about. I do have a "suggestion" for them... Instead of "knowing the rules before breaking them" ... It's better terms (technically) knowing the rules AND how to twist or utilize them... Take "passive voice"... It might be "breaking the rule" to use it where "active" would be better in presentation, and to accomplish the goal of the writing "engaging the reader"... BUT... where it tends to be better in "passive" is where readers are PURPOSEFULLY distanced from the subject at hand... Specifically, exemplar : "The president was sworn into office..." Actually, no. It doesn't HAVE to be written in passive, but the net-effect, in this case DISTANCES the reader from "the president" an adequate (even appropriate?) choice in effect. SOMEONE must stand there, read the lines (or memorize and parrot them) and SWEAR IN the president to his office and the powers thereof. Right? Try (for example) "The Chief of Staff SWORE IN the President..." I do NOT intend to diminish anything here, of course. I just think we have a fair "plethora" of Channels and Creators delivering the "rules" of various crafts, and I would like to see just a bit of an effort to point out a more "cause and effect" approach, rather than a "hard and fast rule... to be broken sometimes" approach... For what it's worth (perspective? I guess) I'm a GM (Game Master) and the oldest rule pounded into my head while I was starting out was very simply, "Never EVER let the rules get in the way of the game." ;o)

Please do more craft chats!!!! I struggled in english and I missed a lot being dyslexic. I learned a lot from this video and as I want to be a better writer I would love to see more like this. I subscribed to your channel in the first place hoping for more things like this. Thank you for taking the time to put this together and sharing it.

This was definitely helpful! Now I want to search my book to see how passive I may have been lol

Guacamole. Passive voice stumped me for over a year. All my critique partners during my second book were coming back with passive voice feedback but couldn't give me examples how to fix it. It took me forever to have a lightbulb moment to fully wrap my mind around what I was doing wrong. Wish I'd seen this back then!

It's disappointing that passive gets such a bad wrap. I'm not even necessarily a passive fan, but I am a staunch defender of its use when I need to be. I really appreciate that this video didn't send a completely anti-passive message, because I think it's important people recognise the usefulness of the passive. In Lee Child's first Jack Reacher novel, the opening sentence is "I was arrested in Ino's diner", which is interestingly passive. I'm guessing all books would have at least one or two passives on the first couple pages alone, so it can definitely be useful. Just for an idea of how often you should use the passive, prose is on average 13% passive according to Merriam-Webster (who actually exclude certain instances of the passive, so this is a conservative number). Also, George Orwell, who famously said "never use the passive where you can use the active", used up to 20% passive constructions in his writing (also from Merriam-Webster).

Thank you for taking the time to do your Craft Chat videos - this one in particular. I have a bad habit of writing in passive voice and this video had helpful information to help combat this annoying habit.

Sometimes active voice doesn't quite ’flow’ with the preceding sentence, or with the sentence that follows, or both.

I bought Barron's "Painless Writing" which is a great guide to help recognize and fix errors that make writing weak. These include excessive prepositions, passive voice, and weak verb/adverb combinations to name a few. I'm going to use it to self edit.

Thank you for this! I have been wondering why I am plagued by passive voice. The majority of my writing has been academic or scientific!!! Makes sense now. ❣️👍🏻

I love your balanced view on passive voice! I know some writers in my critique group who refuse to use "was" or "had" even one time in their books. I also love their style because their hypersensitivity to those passive words has helped me to improve my writing, but at the same time I do feel an occasional "was" or "had" isn't the end of the world, if used in moderation. I also appreciated the explanation of how sometimes passive voice is correct and preferred over active voice. This gives me a lot to think about during my revisions. Thanks!

Good video! Very helpful information about this subject.Thank you Alexa x

Good video. One correction: "The dog bit the boy" is active NOT passive voice. "The boy was bitten by the dog" would be passive voice. The question to ask is: who is the agent? If the story follows the dog, then using the active voice is appropriate. However, if the story is following the boy, then it would be more appropriate to use the passive voice. The most egregious passive voice usages tend to have a neutral "it" as the subject. Ex. "It was noted by the teacher that the student did not do her homework."

So that explains the whole "by zombies" rule.

"The dog bit the boy" isn't passive voice, but rather still active, because the true passive of that sentence is "The boy was bitten by the dog." The subject of that action is the dog, who is doing the action. Your expansion on it does, however, make the active voice sound better.

It's nice to see more craft videos. I love dissecting the plot, characters, and setting of a story, but I've never been skilled with grammar. This was very helpful, and kept my attention.

thanks for the great advice alexa!

Thanks so much for this video. Other sources simply expressed that passive voice is bad, but your argument explains why and how. Active voice will be used by me from now on (irony intended). :)

Thanks for this. Yours is the first video I've seen that explained it in a way that makes sense to me.

Always informative, thank you so much Miss Donne. In my English class, the teacher has never actually touched upon this topic, and so I've only vaguely brushed over it. But this video got straight to the point and made it super clear. Can't wait to watch your next upload.

This was super helpful - it's not always easy to know when you should actually leave passive sentences in, but this made it way more clear and I like that you had such clear examples. :)

Great craft video. I find I write more passive voice when I'm writing by hand, but I notice it more and mark it so I can look at it again later. Your eye makeup is on point, btw.

Ohmygod, thank you for delivering!

Found this really helpful!

This is excellent! Great content :)

Hey Alexa, I work in a scientific field and need to write scientifically every day. when I took a creative writing course I decided to take the rigid structure of the scientific documentation rules and slowly twist in active voice to convey an emotional adventure. I'd be happy to send it to you if you're interested.

As with everything, the way I see it, passive voice is great, as long as is not overused, and as you said, every once in a while makes a greater impact!

Great video. Passive voice is far too easy to slip into, especially for new writers. If you do a 201 topic(I read the comments!), I have a suggestion: Passive voice can be used to shield the reader when something horrible or painful happens to the protagonist the reader has bonded with. Something that can be very useful when dealing with some subject matter. That's to ease the emotional response of the reader. Opposite, to make certain psychological states a protagonist might exhibit, it can become more emotionally stirring to the reader to note a sudden, stark distancing of the protagonist's voice. Found you at the start of November and have been enjoying your videos while I struggle with my current WIP. It's totally not procrastinating ...*shifty-eyes*

I had a professor who prohibited any form of "be" verbs. It was hard. I am serious. It is true. Students were struggling.

I recall covering passive voice in my high school english class, however, I only really could remember it in the context of writing essays and articals. I could not remember how it manifested in a narrative standpoint. Thank you for clarifying it for me. I couldn't help but to think that if couldn't recognize doing it while writing then I was likely very guilty of it... Hehe

I never word searched my manuscript so fast. I was delighted when none of these passives showed up.

I love craft chat videos

Great video! Although I definitely did not fail the exam 😉

Now we know the answer - to be or not to be?

Can you do a video on how to make the middle of a book more interesting or character arvs more interesting. I don't want to add a cheap twist but i need stakes that just arn't flowing right. Any info is helpful!

Hi Alexa, great timing as my Nanowrimo novel is a little challenging in this regard. In my last project, I was very good at active voice (I’d like to think) because she was very in the moment but my protagonist now is very observant, very withdrawn and I’ve noticed I’m using passive voice more than usual. The plan is that as she’s thrown into this world and becomes more active in all aspects of her life, the voice will become more active too. Do you think this is appropriate? Thanks xx

Lol. Whenever I tell someone in my writer's group that they are using passive voice, I preface it with, "I saw this because it's something that I struggle with as well". I'm always weeding passive sentences out of my writing.

Off topic but I’d love your thoughts. I’m working on my YA fantasy novel and I started writing in 3rd person but but I heard that 3rd person is so hard to get signed by an agent in the US. And that that’s only more common in the UK. I’ve really been struggling with this and I’m losing interest in my story because of it. Can YA fantasy be third person? Or an I shooting myself in the foot?

I find passive voice a struggle to write in, despite the fact it happens to me a lot. For instance, if I've figured out exactly what I want in a scene but it's still painful and slow to write I almost always find I've slipped into more passive voice and immediately turn everything active. Makes a scene much easier to write, and that artful passiveness can be sprinkled back in later and with ease.

I'm still confused. I use passive tense when I'm describing something like a scene and how things in it interact with each other. The active subject changing a few times within a sentence. I don't want to chop up my sentences and begin shorter ones with The cat... The house... The window... Is this one of those occasions it's ok?

What Stephen King says about the adverb and passive voice - “The adverb is not your friend. … Adverbs, like the passive voice, seem to have been created with the timid writer in mind.” My favorite part of the “toolbox” deals with his disdain for the passive voice. King tells the writer to “energize your prose with active verbs. … good writing is often about letting go of fear and affectation.” “Everyone’s entitled to his/her opinion, but I don’t believe ‘With a hammer, he killed Frank‘ will ever replace ‘He killed Frank with a hammer.’”

I love passive voiiiiiiice :DD

@Alexa Donne, I am here as a scientist working though my writing to better understand this. I think your explanation is great, however, in science we use active voice.

This is not related to the subject of the video at all, but I have a question. How do I improve when I can't have critique partners/beta readers? I live in a rural area in Iceland and Icelandic has 300.000 native speakers so I can't look online.

But "the dog bit the boy" is active, no? Passive would be "the boy was bitten by the dog."

Hm. I'm using passive voice sometimes to paint my protagonist as someone who blames everyone (and everything) for their problems, like things happen to him specifically. I hope I can get my point (and his voice) across without it coming off as weak.

I bloody hate passive voice. Did not even know what it was when I started writing. When I knew I realised I had real issues with it. I use Edit minion and Hemingway editor to catch things I miss.

Hemingway app pointed out many passive sentences so I came here. I think Hemingway is wrong in many places. My who is coming before the action. According to Purdue Owl, my zombies are lined up right. Are proofreading apps commonly wrong?

Grammarly premium is good at pointing out passive voice prose.

Honestly, I hear this kind of writing advice a lot, but I tend to disagree. For new writers, it's advised to avoid the passive voice, but it's in the English language for a reason and it shouldn't be as hated as it is. I think Steven Pinker actually had a whole talk on this subject, why the passive voice is used, and when it's used. It shouldn't be "fixing passive voice", but rather telling people where in their stories they should be using the passive voice. For example, when the narrator is deliberately hiding information, or changing the focus of the sentence to something other than what you would normally be focused on. Active voice is necessary for things like journalism and such, but when you are creating a narrative and trying to tell a story, limiting your creative options by writing in active voice all the time isn't healthy for the quality of your story.

Most of these examples aren't even in passive voice. Does/causes/bites are in active voice, is done/is caused/is bitten or gets done/gets caused/gets bitten are in passive voice. Passive voice isn't just some vague concept of passivity, reception or vagueness in language, it's a specific grammar structure where verbs and word order are used in a specific way. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_passive_voice#Misuse_of_the_term

No subtitles?

The exam was failed by Zombies

Im not English speaker, I don't understand this topic at all.

"the dog bit him" is still passive voice.