Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Passive Voice

This is topic Passive Voice in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by reid (Member # 1425) on :

In my effort to avoid passive voice in my writing, I have noticed that most of my sentences follow the same structure, that is, “He did this. Then, he did that. Next, he did something else.”

An extreme example from my writing…

He rubbed his unshaven jaw in a futile effort to relax his clenched teeth as he quickly surveyed the jumble of equations and curves. His neck and shoulders ached from being hunched over the screen for hours on end and so he spoke another command to magnify the image on the desktop monitor from floor to ceiling across a grid of electrochromic wall panels.

Pretty monotonous, eh?

Can someone provide simple examples of other sentence structures in an active voice?

Thanks,

Brian

Posted by gt2it (Member # 1632) on :

the way i see it. the first sentence is fine. the second is run on.
try something like this:
Sitting up in the chair he reached back and rubbed his neck and sholder.

"Computer, enlarge the image . . . move it to the wall screen."

Posted by teddyrux (Member # 1595) on :

quote:
He rubbed his unshaven jaw in a futile effort to relax his clenched teeth as he quickly surveyed the jumble of equations and curves. His neck and shoulders ached from being hunched over the screen for hours on end and so. He spoke another command to magnify the image on the desktop monitor from floor to ceiling across a grid of electrochromic wall panels.

The run on sentence is gone and only one of the three sentences are in passive voice. the middle one. If you can combine the first two sentences into one or a couple of shorter sentences, that should take care of that one.
Most word processors, like MS Word, have readability statistics which tell you the percent of passive sentences. There are other things it tell you also.
Hope this helps.

Posted by mags (Member # 1570) on :

There is a book that I picked up the other day from Barnes and Noble (it was in the bargin books) called "Edit Yourself A Manual For Everyone Who Works with Words" by Bruce Ross-Larson. -- the great thing about this book is that it is high on examples, which at least for me is helpful.

Posted by Kolona (Member # 1438) on :

You did avoid the passive voice, Brian, you just need some tightening. I like gt2it's addition of a quote. Borrowing that, and cutting some unnecessary words, how about:

He rubbed his unshaven jaw in a futile effort to unclench his teeth as he surveyed the jumble of equations and curves. His neck and shoulders ached from hours hunched over the screen. "Computer, enlarge the image . . . move it to the wall screen." Instantly the image from the desk monitor covered the grid of floor to ceiling electrochromic wall panels.

When you find yourself writing "and so," assume you have some editing to do.

[This message has been edited by Kolona (edited May 02, 2003).]

Posted by reid (Member # 1425) on :

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and edits! I realize that the excerpt is in active voice. I was really looking for a way to break up the repetitive sentence structure, which GT2IT and Kolona did.

Brian

Posted by Narvi (Member # 1376) on :

I don't think the problem here is with the voice. I think the problem is that we get lots of details without anything we should clearly care about. Establish what's important. Do these equations code for a defense against the expected nuclear missle attack tommorrow morning? Does a sore jaw indicate oncoming death in this species? Are wall sized screens a sure sign of outside technological assistance?

As it is, we have someone overworking himself on something, with some pretty cool technology. This is a position to which we can relate (I daresay we've all done it) but for which we do not necesarily simpathize (I suspect it was usually our own fault ;-) ).

Unless you've already set up these elements, concintrate on one of them, whichever's going to become important. Some examples:

quote:
He rubbed his unshaven jaw in a futile effort to relax his clenched teeth as he surveyed the jumble of equations and curves again. His neck and shoulders ached from being hunched over for hours on end. His eyes burned from staring at the screen. He switched to the wall screen; it didn't help much.

quote:
He surveyed the jumble of equations and curves again. He still didn't see a solution. He leaned back for a moment, and massaged his aching jaw and shoulders. He switched to the wall view. Back to work. Maybe he should try integrating by parts after the second approximation. He issued more commands to the computer.

I think these are a little less monotonous. I've tried to use your words wherever possible. The only stylistic change I found myself making was to illiminate excess words.

My advice would be to decide what the passage is about, and check every detail to see whether or not it's needed.

Hope this helps,

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Another point that doesn't have that much to do with the active v. passive voice issue is that you don't use the character's name even once in forgoing example.

Posted by reid (Member # 1425) on :

I apologize for not putting this paragraph into context. The character’s name is established in the previous paragraph and his care-about is clarified in the next paragraph.

You guys are great. I can’t wait to post over in Fragments and Feedback, “Anyone willing to read a manuscript?” Hopefully by the end of 4Q03.

Regards,

Brian

Posted by srhowen (Member # 462) on :

Even if you have "established" the name in the previous paragraph, using it in the next at least once in place of he will get rid of one of the he's and break it up. Watch how many sentences you start with the same word in any paragraph.

Shawn