Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Tipsy Tuesday

To make your writing more vibrant, one thing you can do is use active voice (rather than passive). For example:

Active - The girl kicked the ball.

Passive - The ball was kicked by the girl.

The verb family of to be (is, am, was, were) is not usually your friend. If you use strong, active verbs you'll use active voice more often. Active voice is stronger and moves the action along. Passive voice sounds like someone is trying to hide something or to avoid responsibility. That's not to say you can't use it or avoid it altogether. But whenever possible, make your writing strong by getting rid of the Toobee family.

2 comments:

Jamie D. said...

I've really been trying hard to do this with my writing - it's truly amazing how much stronger a sentence sounds with active verbs. Great advice.

Sherrill Quinn said...

And it's amazing how easy it is to write in the passive voice, isn't it? LOL