Passive Voice: Aggressive Killer of Reader Attention Span

Many writers fall prey to passive voice. No one can avoid it forever, and it does have its uses at times. However, an author - especially a fiction author - can strengthen prose by avoiding passive voice whenever possible.

Passive Voice Defined

A sentence is passive any time an object of a sentence is made into the subject. If that doesn't make sense, consider this example:

• The curse was uttered.

It is passive because the curse is the object that was uttered. The true subject of this sentence is omitted from the sentence. We could add him into the mix:

• The curse was uttered by the heretic.

The sentence is still passive. The curse is the subject of the sentence, and it cannot actively do anything. Obviously, it cannot utter itself. The heretic is the source of the action. To make this sentence active, make him the subject of the sentence:

• The heretic uttered a curse.

In general, any form of "to be" combined with a past participle creates a passive sentence. Forms of "to be" include "being," "will be," "will have been," "has been," "have been," "had been," "is," "am," "are," "were," and "was."

What's the Big Deal?

Now that we've defined passive voice, you may wonder why anyone cares. Passive voice has three major weaknesses:

1. It isn't as interesting or dramatic as active voice.
2. Its ambiguity often creates confusion or distrust.
3. Omitted details makes an author seem lazy.

Save the Drama for Your Mama

Passive voice does not engage a reader as completely as active voice. Imagine a scene from a fantasy novel where the hero rides to meet a dragon in battle. Which example holds your attention better?

• The mountain was ridden across by the hero to avoid the devastating sand storm that was raised by the dragon's flapping wings.
• The dragon flapped its wings and raised a devastating dust storm on the plain. The hero rode across the mountain to avoid it.

Politicians, Take Notes!

Passive voice often creates confusion or misleads a reader. The following voice contains many words, but it doesn't really say anything at all:

• His wife might have admitted that a few insults may have been said.

Alternately, passive voice can be used to avoid blame. Neither of the following sentences specifies a person who can be associated with the action:

• Three thousand ballots were lost.
• Some of the files were leaked to the press.

Who lost the ballots? Who leaked the files? Even if a writer is not intentionally obscuring identities, this type of writing rips the spine right out of your work. It makes a reader suspect the validity of the entire piece, even if other facts are clearly stated.

Lazy Brains Write Lazy Sentences

Lazy writers tend to use passive voice extensively. Unfortunately, the converse is also true. Extensive use of passive voice makes a writer seem unmotivated. Why should another person be motivated to read your work when your own apathy and laziness are evident in every weak sentence?

I saw evidence of this trend many times when I taught college classes. I assigned essay questions at midterm. Students had seven weeks to research the questions and to plan their written responses. Then they wondered why I flunked them for writing lazy sentences.

• The data packets are encapsulated.

(A person could write an entire book on the encapsulation process, but this fellow summed it up in one, completely uninformative sentence.)

Reconsider the very first example in this article.

• The curse was uttered.

Suppose this is a sentence in a book report or a synopsis for a story that I've never read. Reading this sentence poses more questions than answers. Who uttered the curse? Why? What kind of curse was it? What effect did it have?

Even if we rephrase it into an active sentence, all questions are not answered.

• The heretic uttered a curse.

However, written in an active voice, we have a better frame on which we can attach additional details.

• Confident that his dark powers could kill his foes, the heretic uttered a curse on the first night of the new moon.

This type of sentence is not possible if we start with the passive version.

The examples above show the limits and faults of passive language. It can kill good writing, but fortunately it is easy to detect and correct once you've trained your eyes to see it.