7 Min read

1 English textbook

1 Style Guide

4 Writers: Stephen Ambrose, Jhumpa Lahiri (Pulitzer), Jon Fosse (Nobel), Patti Smith

Improve writing immediately, ages 9 to 99

Toolbox

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How to Improve Writing Part 3: Use the active voice.

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I sat down with an English textbook* and reviewed its five lessons on writing composition. The third lesson instructs us to use the active voice. It’s vigorous and energetic. The active voice shows us who or what is doing the action.

Active voice: The gymnast mounted the balance beam.

Passive voice: The balance beam was mounted by the gymnast.

Simple enough. Here are the text’s five lessons on composition with focus for this letter on the third.

1. originality
2. exact words
3. active voice – the topic of this letter
4. figurative language
5. triplets, as in a set of phrases

William Strunk and E.B. White, in their classic style guide, list the use of active voice as an elementary principle of composition.

“The habitual use of the active voice, however, makes for forcible writing. . . Many a tame sentence of description or exposition can be made lively and emphatic by substituting a transitive in the active voice for some such perfunctory expression as there is or could be heard.”

Here is the chart from Strunk and White’s little book, with the tame sentence and the lively sentence. That is, the passive and the active.

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When the sentence is made stronger it is often shorter.

“Thus, brevity is the byproduct of vigor.” The use of the active voice alleviates the reader from excess and weak words. The writer needs to do the work, to use the active voice, find the exact word, and omit needless words.  

These four passages highlight the active voice. Also check out word choice and originality, principles from lessons one and two. I chose these because there is more going on than principles of composition. Effectively written, the story or scene burnishes bright well after reading.

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EXAMPLES: Ambrose, Lahiri, Fosse, Smith

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1.Winters wheeled and dropped back to the west side of the road, pulled the pin of a hand grenade, and lobbed it over toward the lone sentry. Simultaneously the sentry lobbed a potato masher back at him. The instant winters threw his grenade he realized he had made a big mistake; he had forgotten to take off the band of tape around the handle of the grenade he kept there to avoid an accident.

Before the potato masher could go off, Winters jumped back up on the road. The sentry was hunched down covering his head with his arms, waiting for Winters’s grenade to go off. He was only 3 yards away. Winters shot him with his M-1 from the hip.  (Stephen Ambrose. Band of Brothers (1992), p. 148)

The writer and historian Stephen Ambrose uses active voice to bring the reader into Holland in 1944 with Easy company after D-Day. Winters’s mistake and quick action helped thwart a superior German force, saving himself and his men in the process. The reader can see and hear the unfolding action. Ambrose uses original and exact words (lessons 1 and 2): pin, grenade, sentry, M-1, lobbed, potato masher. Ah! WWII and Nazi Germany.

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2.  The car rattled considerably as it raced along the dusty road, causing them all to pop up from their seats every now and then, but Mrs. Das continued to polish her nails. Mr. Kapasi eased up on the accelerator, hoping to produce a smoother ride. When he reached for the gearshift the boy in front accommodated him by swinging his hairless knees out of the way. (Jhumpi Lahiri. Interpreter of Maladies (1999), p. 48)

Jhumpa Lahiri in this Pulitzer-Prize winning collection uses active voice: the car rattled and raced, the family pops up from their seats and the driver, Mr. Kapasi—who is also the Interpreter—eased up so Mrs. Das can polish her nails. The reader sees the subjects owning the action. The car, the family, the driver. The author’s word choice is original and exact: accelerator, gearshift, hairless knees.

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3.  I got in my car and drove and when I got somewhere I could turn right or left I turned right, and at the next place I could turn right or left I turned left, and so on. (Jon Fosse. A Shining (2023), p. 9)

Jon Fosse—winner of Nobel Prize in Literature 2023–opens in first person and uses the active voice. This makes the story immediate and intimate; the reader inhabits the narrator’s experience and we are there in the car with him, on a drive. 

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4. I opened the bellows of my camera, adjusted my lens and took a few pictures. As I knelt to place the small bundle beneath her name, words formed, tumbling like a nursery song. I felt helplessly at peace. The rain dissipated. My shoes were muddied. There was an absence of light, but not of love. (Patti Smith. Devotion – Why I Write (2016 Windham-Campbell Lecture), p. 26)

Rock star hall-of-famer and writer, Patti Smith, finds the grave of Simone Weil after a lengthy search and journey. She brought her a bundle of lavender from Weil’s native French homeland. The active voice is strong: adjusted my lens (yes her love of photography and pictures in her work), I knelt (physical movement towards Weil’s grave and a word which honors and pays homage), rain dissipated.

Smith’s use of passive voice highlights the subject—My shoes were muddied—showing the author took pains to get to the grave, the trip a long one. And the peace she feels shows in the final sentence because the passive voice emphasizes the most important position of the sentence and paragraph and chapter: the final word. Love.

Use passive voice sparingly. But, as a rule for most writing, use active voice.

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IMPROVE YOUR WRITING IMMEDIATELY

An effective style takes years of effort to seem effortless. Start today, one sentence at a time.

Make the effort to use fresh and exact words. Focus on active voice. Write and edit your paragraph (page or chapter while you’re at it) and use only active voice. Where does passive voice make sense?

Be honest about your writing.

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FOOTNOTES

*This is Part 3 of 5 lessons on How to Improve Your Writing. Follow links to Part 1 and 2 if you missed them, links below.

1. originality – How to Improve Your Writing – Part I: from Tolstoy to Grohl
2. exact words –How to Improve Your Writing – Part 2: from Confucius to Lincoln
3. active voice  – the topic of this letter
4. figurative language
5. triplets, as in a set of phrases

*Let it be known that I break rules. All the time. Fragments–such as the last sentence–have their place. Of Orwell’s six rules for better writing the final rule is applicable here: vi. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. If you’re new to THL (TreeHouseLetter), take a moment for the Footnotes, because this is where I share fun stuff, disclaimers and tidbits not available on podcast, or in the main letter, but reserved for the curious and the tenacious. And, because further explanation would disrupt the flow, but are worth the mention. Beyond Orwell’s barbarism, for the love of language and effective communication, break the rules if the proposition and the writing require it. That is, when rhythm and movement on the line, the message, the broader context of the work and a writerly instinct demand it.

*Astute readers recognize this letter as classic prose, written between equals: the writer and the reader. As an intellectual and philosophical activity, classic writing means the author has done her thinking before writing. I am presenting the results. The propositions are given and reviewed for consideration with examples for study. Are these the end-all, be-all of writing or good composition? Of course not. Orwell has six rules, Strunk and White have 84 pages of rules, and so on. There are many styles and standards. I share these five because most will benefit from them–myself included–and they are easy enough to use and improve writing immediately. Classic Prose: Thought and Presentation, TreeHouseLetter July 21, 2023.

*Communicating Effectively, English 9 & 10, Pub. 2003. Some years ago, I invested in an English program when I took my children out of school to travel. Parents asked about what I would do for school. So,I built a curriculum for my three children, since my husband and I had both taught in college. I chose Rod & Staff Building Christian English–this textbook is the final book in the English series–because I thought my children should know how to write and it was the best program I could find. Schools and an increasingly secular society find such content off-putting, and at times my children found the text humorous. My father learned Latin and English for catechism, and he credits the nuns in parochial school for ensuring every child left the classroom with a knowledge of English. They were not paid in dollars and they would, by God, do everything to make sure he knew his letters. He would become a teacher, a principal and a diplomat.

**William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Illustrated by Maira Kalman, 2007. Who knew there was an illustrated writing guide? A present from my child some years ago, this is the very type of gift I relish. You would benefit equally as a writer if you invested in the classic (un-illustrated) version, but that would be drab and colorless, though of course, far from boring.