It's BlackHippyChick Day! Today we're doing active and passive sentences.
Added 2024-08-28 11:22:56 +0000 UTCWriting is like watercolours. The more you dilute your sentences with extraneous words, the weaker their impact. We spend a great deal of time trying to remove words that contribute nothing to our work as a whole. One of the ways we achieve this is with our sentence structure.
There are two kinds of sentence:
Passive: (The pale of water was fetched by Jack and Jill)
Active: (Jack and Jill fetched a pale of water.)
Passive sentences are almost always an inferior choice because they pack less punch and require extra words. Passive sentences are heavily diluted. Active sentences get straight to the point, so your reader will experience your writing more vibrantly.
There are times when passive sentences offer extra clarity or change the sentence’s emphasis, so we can’t obliterate them entirely. Be suspicious of them, but don’t write them off completely. You might need a passive sentence when you don’t want to mention who performed the action. (The pale of water was fetched rather than Jack and Jill fetched the pale of water). You might also prefer them if you want to emphasize the fetching of the bucket over the people who did the fetching. For these reasons, you’ll need more passive sentences in formal language.
The Hemingway app highlights passive sentences in blue. It’s an excellent learning tool. Give it a try.
