Active Voice, Active Writing Class
by
Gail Martin
Copyright 2002

LESSON ONE:

Many people confuse the concepts of active "voice" and active "writing." Active voice is a particular form of structure easy to identify in the English language, the opposite of passive voice, but active writing is a skill learned by authors to make their work as gripping and action-packed as they can. This creates a "page-turner" novel that all author's dream about.

ACTIVE voice is the opposite of PASSIVE voice which we normally avoid in our novels. Active voice means that the subject performs the action. Example: He read the book. She signed the note. They sang the song. He, she, they are the subjects of the sentence and read, signed, and sang is the action. Now, to make these sentences passive. We take the action away from the subject. Let's make the subject: book, note, and song. The book was read by him. The note was signed by her. The song was sung by them. Do you see the difference? Can you see how the first group of sentences is much more active because the subject is doing the action. In the passive sentence, the subject is having something done to it.

Sometimes passive voice is appropriate. A writer might use passive voice at times when the "doer" is not important. What is important is that something was done. For example: When he reached the cliff, he knew the sarge was correct. The bridge had been destroyed by them. Here, the important message is a destroyed bridge, not who did it. But passive voice should not be used often in fiction. Only for those special occasions. Remember that active voice is the opposite. The subject does the action. This makes any story more action packed.

For each lesson, copy and paste the ACTIVITIES into a new document and send them back to the class when completed.

ACTIVITIES:

Re-write these sentences from passive to active voice:

1. The baskets were stacked in the corner by Bill
2. The bed was made, then Mary lay on the quilt.
3. When they played together, Billy's puppy was taught to rollover.
4. The scenery was carried in by the stage crew before the rehearsal.
5. After her luggage was packed, Mary toted it down the stairs.

What word(s) provide a clue that these are passive sentences?

Look through some of your recent writing and look for examples of passive voice.

LESSON TWO:

In the last lesson, we looked at passive and active voice. This week we will being studying forms of active and passive writing. Since most of us would agree that active writing is the best style for an author, what can we do to keep our writing active? Active writing happens when we (1) remove "deadwood phases" from your work, (2)avoid using predicate nominatives and adjectives because they are showing rather than telling. and (3) select the most vivid, descriptive verbs to portray the characters actions.

This is a very common error - so this lesson is important!

Deadwood phrases run rampant in many novels. Even well-known authors use them at times, but as a new writer, we should want to make our writing as unique and perfect as we can. So what is deadwood? Deadwood refers to unnecessary phrases that take up space and add nothing to the meaning. The major offender in fiction are these phrases: "there was," "there were," "there is," there are and some of the "it is" and "it was" phrases. Learn to cut as many of these as you can from your writing.

It wasn't likely that Bill would return.
Improved: Bill's return was unlikely.
OR Bill would probably not return.

It is possible that the lake will be frozen.
Improved: The lake may be frozen.

There were many factions that influenced her feelings.
Improved: Many factors influenced her feelings

There were moments when she wanted to cry.
Improved: Moments arose when she wanted to cry.
Best: She wanted to cry many moments.

ACTIVITIES:

Re-write the sentences below to eliminate "deadwood."

1. There were so many stars in the sky she couldn't breath.
2. It wasn't his comment that upset her but it was his tone.
3. There were people at the party he'd never seen before.
4. There were busloads of people who arrived without advanced tickets.
5. It was a beautiful day filled with sunshine.

Study a chapters of your novel, and look for examples of "deadwood" phrases. List as many as you find and rewrite the sentences to get rid of the unnecessary words.
In the process of thinking about the past lesson, I thought I'd add a couple of bonus comments that might be helpful. I'm sure many of you know this already - but it's always a good review.

Avoid redundancy in phrases like:
stand up
sit down
fall down
lift up
jump up
If you think about it - you can jump down - but up is usually a given and the same with the other phrases. Avoid them.

Also:
Be careful of separating the very from the preposition. This is a common error I see in writing and catch it in my own - so I know it's very easy to do.

Example:

Propped the book up - should be: propped up the book
Cut the roast up - should be: cut up the roast
Cashed his money in - should be: cashed in his money
Set the table and chairs up - should be: set up the table and chairs
Carried the papers in - should be: carried in the papers

If you were saying, he carried the papers into the house - that's okay because now it's a prepositional phrase.

I hope that helps you. Please look for some of those problems in your writing. They are very common.

LESSON THREE:

I wanted to clarify a couple of points so that I don't mislead you.

1. Remember all of those things that drag down your writing and take away action - look for all of the things you're learning in all four lessons from now on.

2. When writing dialogue, sometimes a character may use "there was/is" or another non-active phrase because we don't always talk following all the grammar rules. If you can make the change to more active writing and still sound natural, that's good, but don't mess up your meaning or sound stilted in dialogue by trying to make these changes.

3. Sometimes was, were, it, etc are unavoidable. If you've referred to someone's lovely coat, for example, you can say "it's shiny buttons - rather than repeating the coat's shiny buttons. That helps avoid redundancy in using the same word over and over.

4. The most difficult sentence for many of you was:
It was a beautiful day filled with sunshine.

Here's how one student solved the problem:
Sunshine flooded her new day with its bright beauty.

Or simply say - The beautiful day glistened with sunshine, sparkled, flooded glowed, etc.

Now here's the next lesson:

Lesson 3

In the last lesson, we looked at deadwood phrases. This week we will being studying forms of active and passive writing. Since most of us would agree that active writing is the best style for an author, what can we do to keep our writing active?

Active writing happens when we

(1) remove "deadwood phases" from your work
(2) avoid using predicate nominatives and adjectives because they are showing rather than telling, and
(3) select the most vivid, descriptive verbs to portray the characters actions.

This week we will study ways to eliminate as many predicative nominatives and adjectives as we can. Remember how we found the verbs "was" and "were" to be the culprits in passive voice. We will find similar clues when looking for phrases that are telling rather than showing.

First, what is a predicate nominative? These are nouns or pronouns that are combined with the "to be" verbs [is, was, are, were, be, been] or words like: looked, appeared, became. The linking verb is like an equal sign. He was the mayor. He = mayor. She was a dancer. She = dancer.

A predicate adjective is a noun and an adjective [word that describes a noun] linked with one of the words listed above: is, are, was, were, etc. She is beautiful. He looked strong. Brad was kind. Grammatically, nothing is wrong with these sentences, but they ar e "telling" rather than "showing." Good writers want to show their characters in action rather than tell.

So what can you do to improve a predicate nominative?

She was a dancer.
Improved: Mary flounced into the room dressed in a tutu and ballet slippers.
(We are showing she's a dancer rather than telling.)

He was the mayor.
Improved: Elected as mayor last month, Jordan Brown strutted into the room.

What can we do with predicate adjectives?

She was beautiful.
Improved: Looking like a goddess, she arrived, smelling of exotic perfume and radiating like the sun.

He looked strong.
Improved: Lifting the automobile off the ground by the back bumper, he pointed to the muffler. "It's rusted through."

ACTIVITIES:

Write a sentence for each of the following:

1. The tall man was a soldier.
2. Dora was a designer.
3. The child was a beast.

Write a sentence for each of the following:

1. Brad was kind.
2. Julie was selfish.
3. Karen appeared snobbish.

Look through your own work and find an example of a predicate nominative or predicate adjective and send along the "telling" example as well as your rewritten version to make it more showing.

Hope this improves your novel a hundredfold!

LESSON FOUR:

In this lesson, we will study the last element of making our novels more vivid and more active. One method of improving the action is to select the most vivid and appropriate verbs. Though walked, saw, hurried, thought, and touched are all perfectly acceptable action verbs, authors can over use them. Observe people as they "walk" and see how many different verbs you can identify that means walk but is more vivid and specific. For example, instead of walked, look at the following words that mean the same thing: ambled, meandered, strode, marched, sashayed, moseyed, glided, paraded, and bounced. Marched sounds purposeful while paraded sounds more showy. Notice the subtle differences.
Instead of "hurried," consider using the following: rushed, bolted, dashed, charged, sped, zipped, tore, and raced Zipped has a more lighthearted tone than bolted, so keep the mood of your story in mind.

"Saw" could be changed (sometimes using the word "at") with the following words that have subtle undertones of meaning: eyed, witnessed, studied, gazed, inspected, observed, watched, ogled, gawked, gaped, examined, looked, and noticed.

ACTIVITIES:

When we share these in class, the examples will give you a selection of words to consider as you write your next scenes.

List other words that mean the same as those listed below, but add a more vivid picture.

Thought
Hurried
Held

Find some places in your work that you have used a more general word, and rewrite the sentences to make them more specific and active. List your original sentence and your improved sentence.