Don't just sit there, get active! (Passive voice)

 One of the toughest obstacles facing any writer is the challenge of maintaining active voice throughout the writing. Active voice is what keeps a story interesting, yet it's easy to fall into passive voice when writing.

When a story is written in an active voice, it means that the subject of the sentence is the one performing the action. In passive voice, the doer of the action becomes the object rather than the subject. The doer is acted upon, rather than acting itself.

In this example from the New York Times, passive voice is turned to in telling about the deaths of four people.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — At least four people were killed in the southern port city of Karachi on Tuesday in bombings that struck two buses carrying Pakistani naval employees, a senior naval official said. At least 56 people were wounded.

The sentence could be made stronger by using the active voice. In this case, that would mean making the bombings perform the action:

Bombings that struck two buses carrying Pakistani naval employees in the southern port city of Karachi on Tuesday killed at least four people. 

The original sentence had the passive voice construction of "who had what done to it by whom" (four people were killed by bombings). The new sentence follows the active voice construction of "who did what to whom" (bombings killed four people).

It's easy to fall into the trap of passive voice, but for stronger, more engaging writing, you're always better off sticking with active voice.


Masood, Salman. "4 Killed in Bus Bombings in Pakistan." The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/world/asia/27pakistan.html?ref=world. 26 April 2011.