![]() Most of the time, active voice is the better choice in writing. However, there are instances in which the passive voice gives an extra dimension to a story. What is active voice?Īctive voice is a simple sentence structure that involves the subject of a sentence-usually a person-doing something. This type of writing is direct, straightforward, and convincing. Here are a few examples of sentences in active voice: It means someone is taking a direct action towards a goal. (In passive voice, this would be written as “He was smiled at by her.” We’ll look more at passive voice next.)Īnd so forth. In each of these active voice examples, someone (that would be the subject, in grammatical terms), takes an action (that would be your verb) towards something else-him, a hat, a street (this would be the grammatical subject of a sentence). You could just say “She smiled,” or “They stepped outside,” and it would still be in the active voice. Passive voice flips these sentences around so that instead of the subject doing something, something is being done to them. Often, this type of writing is discouraged because it tends to slow down a narrative. In story structure, writers are encouraged to have their characters taking action rather than having the action simply happen to them. Passive voice represents this on a smaller sentence-scale structure. If we turn the above sentences into passive voice examples, they look like this:Ī lot of the time, these don’t even look like real English. ![]() “Every effort will be made” (by us) “to address your request in three business days.” But sometimes passive sentence structures are used when one wants to deflect responsibility from the subject, or particularly emphasize the object of a sentence. ![]() “We will make every effort to address your request.” The first example is a passive voice sentence, and the second is an active voice sentence. When should you use active voice in writing? The first is less direct and takes some of the responsibility off the speaker. Most of the time, it’s good practice to default to using active voice sentences in your writing. In academic, political, or scientific writing, active sentences make your facts and arguments sound more convincing.īecome the best writer you can be in our writing community Even if both present the same idea and are grammatically correct, sentences in active voice tend to make your writing flow more smoothly. Scribophile is one the web’s largest writing communities. One of the biggest places where active voice is essential in fiction writing is during action sequences. If you’re writing a fight scene between two people, using the passive voice can give your writing a slow, dreamlike quality-not ideal for a scene where everything should be fast paced and vivid. “Suddenly, Cole was punched in the face by Jake. Cardboard boxes were toppled by his fall. Cole’s vision was blurred by bright patches.”Ī bro’s getting beat on, and I’m yawning. “Suddenly, Jake punched Cole in the face. He stumbled against a wall of cardboard boxes.
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