voice Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Peter Lyle DeHaan

The sentence, “In my opinion, passive writing is bad,” exemplifies the passive voice.

The active voice says, “Kill passive writing.” My title proclaims this.

By nature, my words, both spoken and written, are passive. Many years ago, I became so irritated with Microsoft Word pointing out the passive sentences that I turned off the option. I concluded passivity was just my style. My writing voice was passive, so people needed to accept it and stop criticizing me for it.

In retrospect, I avoided the reality that my writing needed work.

Now I’m again checking for passive phrases and attacking them.

Sometimes passive writing is easy to fix. For the rest of the time, editing out passiveness is hard; often I end up with a sentence that is longer or less clear.

So, if fixing a passive sentence makes it stronger or easier to read, I gladly do it. For the rest, I’ll make an effort to fix them but am willing to retain some on occasion.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

How concerned should we be over passive sentences?

My response has included both extremes: ignore every one of them and kill each one. Right now, I’m somewhere in the middle.

Years ago spell check shocked me by showing all of the passive sentences I used when I wrote. Seemingly every sentence. It was so bad I turned off the option. That way my passive wording wouldn’t confront me. I justified this by claiming passive writing was my voice.

I was just being lazy.

Eventually, I got serious about writing and turned the option back on. I now check for passive phrases and attempt to correct them.

Half the time it’s easy to do. The rest seem hard to fix, and sometimes the result is less clear and more wordy. When that happens I leave them as is. A few passive phrases aren’t bad. Really.

So every time spell check warns me of a passive sentence I scrutinize it. If I can correct it and make the sentence stronger, I will gladly do so. However, if removing the passive construct results in a sentence that is verbose, confusing, or longer, I’m better off leaving it as is.

Keeping a passive construct that’s concise seems preferable to forcing an active voice that’s ambiguous.

That’s how I deal with passive sentences.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.