Are you interested in improving writing skills? Working as an editor for two large websites, I can tell you that I’ve seen writing that runs the entire gamut - from the most skillfully written prose to the most horrid and grammatically terrible writing I’ve ever seen. The interesting articles and blog posts to edit are those from writers who are supposedly “good writers,” yet they use passive voice throughout their writing like it’s going out of style.

What is Passive Voice?

Before you can avoid this writing faux pas, you have to know what it is. Let me set the record straight. Passive voice is not a grammatical error, no matter how many editors try to tell you that it is. It is a stylistic choice that has a significant impact on the clarity of your writing. Are you “allowed” to write in the passive voice? Yes. Whether you should is a whole other matter. When it comes to improving writing skills for either non-fiction or fiction writing, passive voice is the most important thing you should look at.

Passive voice is when your verb is acting upon the subject of the sentence. If that doesn’t make any sense to you, then take a look at this sentence.

John was hit by the truck as he crossed the highway.

You’ve probably even seen lots of sentences written like this in professionally written novels that you read. That’s because it’s such a easy stylistic mistake to make that professional writers slip up and do it to. The amount that you can keep passive voice out of your writing will determine how “professional” your writing appears - because good style makes your writing much more clear.

Why is it “passive”? It’s passive because the person or thing performing the action is not the subject of the sentence. This makes the sentence feel jumbled and very confusing. The subject that performs the action should be where people grammatically expect the subject to be - in the opening of the sentence. Look how much clearer this sentence appears when you write it without using passive voice.

The truck hit John as he crossed the highway.

There is no question who is doing the hitting or the crossing, because the subject is before the verb. It isn’t “required,” but it sure does make your sentence run more smoothly with the rest of the writing, and it lets your readers fly through the text without pausing to understand exactly what you’re trying to say. It’s obvious to see how far this goes toward improving writing skills.

Common Phrases in Passive Writing

There are some signs that a person’s writing is using passive voice. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but working as an editor, I can tell you that nine times out of ten, when people use these phrases, they’ve also used the passive voice.

• to be
• has been
• have been
• had been
• will be
• will have been

Once you spot these, check whether or not they are followed by a past participle - a past tense form of a verb. Here are a few more examples of sentences with passive voice.

• The truck was driven by Tom.
• The road has been fixed by the town’s road crew.
• During our road trip, the car was ruined.
• In the future, all money will have been changed over to digital form.

Passive Voice Myths Handed Down by Grammar Fanatics

While I don’t like reading passive voice any more than the next person, it’s also important to understand that passive voice is not “against the rules.” If you want to use sentences like this throughout all of your writing - have at it! It isn’t grammatically correct, it just makes your writing a bit unclear. Your reader may get a headache, but your writing isn’t “wrong.”

Also, just because someone uses one of the phrases listed above, such as “has been” or “will be”, does not mean they’ve used passive voice. It is only a signal for you to look for if you are editing someone else’s work. There are plenty of times when using such phrases is useful, especially if you’re talking about events that took place in the past, such as, “In three years, the U.S. government will have replaced the entire health insurance industry with a better solution.”

It’s clear that the U.S. government is going to do the replacing - therefore the sentence is not passive.

Practice Makes Perfect

I’ve you’ve started using passive voice in your writing, it can be a very, very difficult habit to break. You have to constantly ask yourself whether the subject of the verb in your sentences is both present in the sentence, and placed at the beginning of the sentence. Avoid the temptation to place the object of the verb (whatever the action is affecting) in the subject.

Once you recognize exactly what passive voice is, you’ll never miss it when you’re reading. In fact, you’ll see it everywhere, and if you don’t like the style - it will drive you batty to read poorly written writing. Over time and with a lot of practice, you’ll get a lot better at improving your writing skills to remove all trace of passive voice.

*****

Ryan is a technology writer and investigative blogger. He has been working as an online writer for numerous clients for over 5 years, and now consults webmasters and blog owners about effective SEO optimization. Ryan has 48 post(s) at Free Writing Center