Passive Voice - How to bore your reader or NOT last lesson answers

Passive Voice Final Exercise and Answers. I thought it only fair to share the answers to the exercise. Then I thought I would give you another set of passive voice sentences that you could change to passive voice on your own.

Passive Voice:

1. The poem was read aloud by Margaret.
2. The Yankees were beaten by the Tigers in the playoffs.
3. Her personal computer was given to Edith by her parents.
4. The turnoff for Route 287 was finally reached by Carla.
5. Many letters have been sent by me to your office.
6. The streets around the fire had been blocked off by the police.
7. The truth was suddenly realized by the contestants.
8. The computers were shipped by the Tucson branch on Monday.
9. Projects were judged by the teachers.
10. A brialliant performance was given by the choir.
11. Adam and JoAnne were married by the priest.
12. The test was taken by Amanda last week.
13. The truck was broken by little Tommy while he played.
14. The National Enquirer was sued by a famous actor for publishing a scandalous photo.
15. The movie was seen by the class before the exam.

Active Voice:

1. Margaret read the poem aloud.
2. The Tigers beat the Yankees in the playoffs.
3. Her parents gave Edith her personal computer.
4. Carla finally reached the turnoff for Route 287.
5. I have sent many letters to your office.
6. The police blocked off the streets around the fire.
7. The contestants suddenly realized the truth.
8. The Tucson branch shipped the computers on Monday.
9. The teachers judged projects .
10. The choir gave a brilliant performance.
11. The priest married Adam and JoAnne.
12. Amanda took the test last week.
13. Little Tommy broke the truck while he played.
14. A famous actor sued the National Enquirer for publishing a scandalous photo.
15. The class saw the movie before the exam.

Exercise to do on your own:

1. The statue is being visited by hundreds of tourists every year.
2. My books were stolen by someone yesterday.
3. These books had been left in the classroom by a careless student.
4. Coffee is raised in many parts of Hawaii by plantation workers.
5. Their home had been broken into by someone while they were on vacation .
6. A woman was being carried downstairs by a very strong firefighter.
7. The streets around the fire had been blocked off by the police.
8. Have you seen the new movie that was directed by Ron Howard?
9. My car is in the garage being fixed by a dubious mechanic.
10. A great deal of our oil will have been exported to other countries by our government.

Passive Voice - How to bore your reader or NOT last lesson

Today is the last lesson for passive voice. Ready?


Now that I drilled active versus passive voice into your head, there are times when it is appropriate to use passive voice or forms of “to be.”

“When is it okay to use passive voice?”

Passive voice is how we speak so using passive voice in dialog is appropriate. (The fact that we speak in passive voice explains why we make the mistake of writing our fiction the same way.)

Use forms of “to be” to create vivid descriptions of your subjects.

Example: Jane was a tall, leggy woman with long, blonde hair.

Use the forms of “to be” to express ongoing action.

Example: Dick was already running late when he locked his keys in his car.

Example: Jane is moving to Seattle to work for Starbucks.

Now that you know the difference between passive (bad) and active (good) voice, how do you fix your story?

Many grammar check programs have settings that you select to encourage you to eliminate the passive voice sentences. Find that setting, turn it on, and watch how many sentences it underlines in green. (Microsoft Word underlines the bad grammar with a green line.)

How do I know this?

“Uh hem.” Yup, that is me waving my hands again. I write romantic suspense and the last thing I want to do is throw my reader out of the story because I wrote a “telling,” non-active sentence.

Can you just picture it?

Bad: Charley was being chased through the forest by a knife-wielding lunatic.
Good: A knife-wielding lunatic chased Charley through the forest.

If you do not have a grammar checker then go through your written work and highlight all the "to be" verbs (am, is, are, was, were, be, being, and been), then try to eliminate between one half and two thirds of your passive voice.

Converting passive voice sentences to active voice sentences is fairly easy. When you find a passive voice sentence the object will be at the beginning of the sentence instead of the end. Find the subject (who or what is doing the action) and put that word first. Find the object (what the subject is doing) and put that at the end.

Example: Dick was bitten by the dog.
Example: The dog bit Dick.

Another good way to cut down on passive voice is to combine sentences, or revise them to convey your original thought in a new, more powerful, active way.

In conclusion, remember this: passive voice “tells” the story, while active voice “shows” the story to your reader. If you can commit this to memory, you are on your way to writing good fiction and future published author.

Worked for me!

Final Exercise:

1. The poem was read aloud by Margaret.
2. The Yankees were beaten by the Tigers in the playoffs.
3. Her personal computer was given to Edith by her parents.
4. The turnoff for Route 287 was finally reached by Carla.
5. Many letters have been sent by me to your office.
6. The streets around the fire had been blocked off by the police.
7. The truth was suddenly realized by the contestants.
8. The computers were shipped by the Tucson branch on Monday.
9. Projects were judged by the teachers.
10. A brialliant performance was given by the choir.
11. Adam and JoAnne were married by the priest.
12. The test was taken by Amanda last week.
13. The truck was broken by little Tommy while he played.
14. The National Enquirer was sued by a famous actor for publishing a scandalous photo.
15. The movie was seen by the class before the exam.

Passive Voice - How to bore your reader or NOT continued

Passive Voice lesson continued.

Yesterday we learned that passive voice lends itself to "telling." Telling is an absolute no-no when it comes to writing fiction. Why? Because it does not draw your readers into the story. Instead, it keeps them on the outside looking in.

How do we then take care of that nasty passive voice?

So glad you asked! The answer is Active Voice.

What is active voice?

Active voice defined: Active voice results from the use of action verbs like run, jump, hit, love, move, crash, remove, throw, etc. Active voice is lively and engages the reader.
A reader will be able to envision action verbs.

Let’s see some examples.

Active: The door hit Jane in the face.
Passive: Jane was hit in the face by the door.
Passive: Jane was hit in the face.

Do you see the difference? First, there are fewer words used in the active sentence. This is important when your editor tells you to cut 8000 words from your manuscript and you don't know where. Second, in the passive voice, Jane looks likes a dunce because she is sitting there waiting (passively) for the door to hit her. Third, in the active voice, the door (actively) goes and hits Jane. Slam!

In the second passive voice example, what is missing? Who or what hit Jane in the face? As a reader, I kind of want to know that, otherwise, I will think she ran into a stiff wind or dead air.

One other hint that indicates the use of passive voice is the word “by” in a sentence. See the next examples.

Some more examples:

Active: Jane blocked Dick’s view of the lock with her body.
Passive: Dick’s view of the lock was blocked.
Passive: Dick’s view of the lock was blocked by Jane’s body.

Active: Dick kissed the nape of her neck.
Passive: Dick was kissing the nape of her neck.
Passive: Her nape was being kissed by Dick.

Now, let's see if you can take those passive voice sentences you write yesterday and turn them into active voice sentences. Let's see if you can engage your reader instead of keeping them on the outside of the fish bowl looking in.

Your exercise: Take those 5 sentences you wrote and post them along with the active voice example of the same sentence.

I'll get you started.

Passive:
Kim was invited to a party by Raymond.
The Vikings were beaten by the Redskins in the playoffs.
My books were stolen by someone yesterday.
The pizza was eaten by the girls.
Allison was stunned by the actions of her classmates.

Active:
Raymond invited Kim to a party.
The Redskins beat the Vikings in the playoffs.
Someone stole my books yesterday.
The girls ate the pizza.
The actions of her classmates stunned Allison.

Look forward to your examples.

Passive Voice - How to Bore Your Readers or Not

Have you ever submitted a manuscript to an editor and one of the feedback lines, if you receive any, is that you need to remove most if not all passive voice sentences?

“Uh-hem.” Yes, that is me raising my hand, waving it in the air for all to take notice.

After doing some research, I found out that passive voice is the number one mistake new writers make.

“Well, gee, somebody should have told me that before I finished writing those 350 pages.”

Now you are sitting there on your sofa or in your desk chair wondering, “What is passive voice?”

Good question and here is the answer.



Passive voice defined: Passive voice, in writing, results from the overuse of the "to be" verbs: am, is, was, were, be, being and been. Passive voice lacks the SVO pattern of a sentence.

I know, I know. “What is the SVO pattern?”

SVO stands for Subject Verb Object pattern. A good, clear sentence follows this structure. The sentence begins with a Subject that performs an action, then a Verb, which is the action, and finally it has an Object that receives the action. (The object is not always there.)

Your head is still spinning so let me give you an example of a sentence with the correct use of SVO.


1. The car ran Jane over.
Subject = car, Verb = ran, Object = Jane

The following is bad SVO pattern, which results in passive voice.


2. Jane was run over by the car.
Subject = Jane, Verb = was, Object = Car



Close your eyes and visualize the word “was.” You can see nada, zero, and empty, completely blank. A reader will never be able to close his or her eyes and envision your passive verbs (for one cannot see "be" or a picture that goes with "is").



Here is your visual clue. Close your eyes and visualize the word “ran.” You can see someone lifting their legs, their feet hitting the pavement, and arms pumping.

Passive voice is “telling” and keeps your reader disengaged from your story. Often, it weakens a sentence by using more words than necessary. Just look at our examples above.





Your exercise:



Write and post 5 Passive Voice sentences. (Write them off the top of your head, pull some out of your own manuscript, or pull some out of a published novel.)



Let me get you started:



Kim was invited to a party by Raymond.

The Vikings were beaten by the Redskins in the playoffs.

My books were stolen by someone yesterday.

The pizza was eaten by the girls.

Allison was stunned by the actions of her classmates.

Articles - Passive Voice

One person from my writer's group suggested a couple of writing articles for my next effort. Thanks, Jennifer!

Last week before I took the 5 hour drive to NJ, I did manage to get an article written on Passive Voice. I'll post that soon on my website. This may be an option for me when I do my speaker bit in February for the NHRWA.

If you've never been to a NHRWA meeting you should check it out. http://nhrwa.tripod.com/

Anyway, one thing you should know about passive voice that I found very interesting is that it is the number 1 thing new fiction writer's do wrong. Can you believe that?

But you know why? Because passive voice is how we speak.

There's some trivia for you.

My Manuscript is complete!

Yeehaw! Yes, this is me doing the happy dance!! I officially finished my second manuscript this morning and it feels EXCELLENT! Okay, it felt so good I actually teared up because I DID IT!

Now, I'm waiting hear back from my critique friends as to what they think and then send to my editor. YES! Throw my hand in the air in a sign of triumph.

What do you do after you complete a manuscript?? Go to Disney World?! NOT!
You edit. Yes, you've been doing that all along, but now you do the nasty search for those passive voice sentences, and as my father like to point out (too many contractions).

And yup, already did that today. Let me tell you, 318 pages takes a long time to go through to make certain you caught all the bad stuff. Hours and hours. And even after I went through once, I had MSFT Word do the grammar check on it and of course it still found some leftovers.

Anyway, big sigh. I feel good, no great, no flippin' fantastic! I did it, I did it!! Be jealous.
Now I gotta come up with the next in the series. :-) My hero Jake is going to take center stage. Stay tuned.