Estimated reading time 3 minutes
Table of Contents
Introduction
Are you confused about what’s the difference between active and passive voice? Do you need help writing them? You need to understand their advantages and disadvantages if you want your prose, poems, and songs to sound tight and be easy to listen to and read. Keep reading Active Versus Passive Voice: How to Write Them to learn what they are and how they work.
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Active Versus Passive Voice and How to Write Them: What’s the Difference Between Them?
What are they?
- Active voice has the person doing the action as the subject of the sentence.
- Passive voice doesn’t have the person doing the action as the subject of the sentence.
Examples
Active
- Past Tense: Caleb washed the car.
- Present Tense: Caleb washes the car.
- Present Progressive Tense: Caleb is washing the car.
- Past Progressive Tense: Caleb was washing the car.
Passive
- Past Tense: The car was washed by Caleb.
- Present Tense: The car is washed by Caleb.
- Present Progressive Tense: The car is being washed by Caleb.
- Past Progressive Tense: The car was being washed by Caleb.
Active Versus Passive Voice and How to Write Them: Disadvantages of Passive Versus Active Voice
Passive voice has two big downsides:
- It’s wordy: If you look at the examples in the previous section, you’ll see that passive sentences are always longer. If you fill your writing with them, you’ll significantly increase your audience’s reading time.
- It makes your reader work harder: In other words, active sentences are simpler. Therefore, it’ll be easier for your readers to understand, which makes your writing faster and easier to read.
Active sentences make your writing tighter, more immediate, and less tiring to read.
Active Versus Passive Voice and How to Write Them: How It Works
There are instances where the verb "to be" isn’t in passive voice.
- Bob was angry.
This isn’t passive voice because the person doing the action (Bob) is experiencing a state of anger. However, the following would be:
- Anger was felt by Bob.
I wouldn’t suggest using the last sentence.
Having said that, mostly you’ll look at your writing and find the word "to be" in all its various forms (am, are, is, was, were, be, being, been, will be).
- If the verb “to be” is in passive voice, delete it and turn the participle into the verb.
- In other words, you’ll restructure the sentence to make the person performing the action be the subject.
- For example: “the story was composed by the student” turns into “the student composed the story.”
Here are some resources that will help you craft better poetry and songs.
Final Thoughts
Takeaway points:
- Active voice has the person doing the action as the subject of the sentence.
- Passive voice doesn’t have the person doing the action as the subject of the sentence.
- To turn passive sentences into active ones, you must restructure sentences to make the person performing the action be the subject.
Have fun writing!
Related Posts
- Writing Well Crafted Songs
- What Is an Oxymoron and How to Write It
- How to Transform a Poem into a Powerful Song
© 2025 Geoffrey Keith
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