Using Active vs Passive Verbs

 

Exercise is action

This is a repeat post on a very important topic. Strong, active verbs can make your writing come to life. 

I noted a comment on Facebook yesterday that made me stop and ponder for a moment. A memoir writer, new to writing I'm guessing, asked a question about verb tense usage and then added that she noticed an awful lot of the word 'was' in her writing. Let's take a look at verbs like this.

The use of the passive verb was and others like is, was, are, or were, is pretty common when writing a first draft. In trying to get the main idea down in an initial draft, we aren't thinking about the kind of verbs we use. The very experienced writer will automatically steer to the more active verbs because--well, because of long experience. Most of us need to give serious thought to the kind of verbs we use, and that's a very good reason why we must, must, must proofread and edit those beginning efforts.

In our clipart above, we take note of a person performing a series of exercises. He is active. Consider some of the verbs you might use to describe his exercising:  bend, tilt, stretch, rise, pull.  The man is active, and your verbs should follow his example. 

In Gary Provost's book '100 Ways to Improve Your Writing', he says "Generally speaking, verbs are weak when they are not specific, are not active, or are unnecessarily dependent on adverbs for their meaning."  In this instance, he was discussing strong verbs vs weak ones. 

Take a look at these examples:

                         Weak                                                                Strong

A. There was a curio cabinet in the corner.                    A curio cabinet towered in the corner.

B. There are two men on the curb.                                Two men sit side by side on the curb.

In the first example, using the verb towered in place of was gives a much better picture. It tells us the size of the cabinet. Note in the second example that the stronger sentence tells us exactly what the men are doing--sitting. In order to use a different verb in this sentence, I had to change the order of the sentence a bit, and I added a little more.  

Sometimes, you need to change the order of a sentence when using a more active verb. And that's fine. You can't always pluck the weak verb from the sentence and plop a better one in the same spot.  Did you notice that 'was' is often accompanied by the word 'there'? Some writers get in the habit of using There was, There are, There is, There were, and it becomes habitual. 

There are writers who might say 'Who cares about passive verbs? I use them all the time. No big deal.' You can use them; we have no law that says you're forbidden to use passive verbs. A few of them are fine. However, if you change as many as possible to active verbs, your writing will be stronger and more interesting. We're always advising writers to show rather than tell. Those active verbs will help you do more showing.

Just for fun, get one of your stories, essays or poems out of your files and go through it, marking all the passive verbs. Underline each one with a color that will stand out. You might be surprised at how many you find. Then, as a writing exercise, replace as many as possible with active verbs.