Today, I’m going to talk about one of my biggest weaknesses in writing – passive voice.
For those who don’t know, passive voice concerns mainly underplaying action words. It’s the habit of describing an action as opposed to acting it.
ie. “He was clearly upset by the news.”
Instead of that, you want to write more like: “The news clearly upset him.”
Even better, “His expression fell at the news.”
In the first example, you’re telling something about their reaction. Your writing’s probably going to have some of this anyway, and it isn’t entirely the villain. Your manuscript would only suffer if you have tons of these.
In the second, you’re avoiding the ‘was’ by restructuring the sentence, and you’re telling the reaction of the character in the same way. It’s better, but here comes the last example. Instead of telling their reaction, you’re showing it. Depending on the narrative, this is your narrator seeing the character’s expression change at the news. It leaves the reader to infer how the character feels.
Of course, both are right, and passive voice is only a wrecking ball in abundance. I spent days changing almost every example of passive voice in my book, but some had their place.
The important thing is to recognize it, to change that habit, and recognize when you’re writing passively in your novel. Recognize where it has its place, and learn how to upgrade your language to the next level.
Sovereign Soul 