Eli5 How does passive/active voice work???
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I imagine you’re asking because you’ve heard that writers should avoid passive voice. Why is that the prevailing wisdom? Firstly, to answer your question, passive voice is when the subject is acted upon by the verb. Here’s an example:
**Echoing down the hallway was the woman’s scream.**
So what’s wrong with this sentence? Firstly, the reader cannot form a picture in their mind of what is happening until the end of the sentence. This creates distance between the reader and the action which is the opposite of what a writer wants to do.
Compare the above sentence with the following one:
**The woman’s scream echoed down the hallway.**
See how much better that is? The reader immediately gets a picture in their mind and they are drawn into the action. Plus, it’s less wordy and moves the story along better.
Is passive voice always bad? No, it has a place in storytelling. For example, “Grandma got ran over by a reindeer” is passive, but in this instance it’s superior to “The reindeer ran over grandma.” But in most cases passive voice does more harm than good.
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