Back to the Passive
After a brief interlude, I’m returning to the lovely world
of verbs, specifically passive voice.
Check out previous posts for more of the discussion.
Here, let’s talk about removing passive verbs (quick
reminder—passive is neither wrong nor bad. It simply removes the action from the
sentence).
When I am trying to remove passive verbs from sentences, I
either look for subjects and check that they are doing the actions or check the
verbs to make certain that the verbs do not have a BE + PAST PARTICIPLE
form.
Let’s take a look:
My mother and I walked downtown
after the football game but the street was blocked off because the gas station
had been robbed. We walked past the
barriers and talked of going to the Mexican restaurant for a margarita and a
taco, but we were stopped just past the barrier and were questioned. My mom seemed a little upset by the
situation, so we turned around and went home.
We had a pizza delivered to us instead.
There is nothing wrong with this paragraph really, but as a
creative writer, the overwhelming passive verbs remove the potential for action
and tension.
Here is the same paragraph with the passive verbs marked:
My mother and I walked downtown
after the football game but the street was blocked off because the gas station had been robbed. We walked past the barriers and talked of
going to the Mexican restaurant for a margarita and a taco, but we were stopped just past
the barrier and were
questioned. My mom seemed a
little upset by the situation (this isn’t passive despite the “by” phrase), so
we turned around and went home. A pizza was delivered instead.
This quick paragraph that eludes at tension (“My mom seemed
a little upset by the situation”) really has no action or suspense because the
passive fizzles out anything that might happen.
Not only that, but this paragraph is thin on details and scene.
Take a stab at revising this.
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