If you’re like me, you have a tendency to drift into passive voice without even really meaning to.
What do I mean by ‘to be’?
This whole statement is in passive voice. Verbs such as was, is, would have can remove the action from your story. But don’t get out your red pen yet.
Corrected Example: I thought about going to the party and wearing my green party dress.
What was that, a passive verb?
Ack! They’re everywhere.
How can you see how much passive voice you’re using?
You could reply on a fellow writer to review your novel for you. But for some reason, not every writer wants to read 80,000 words of a rough draft. I can’t understand why. And not every writer is great at spotting passive voice. Writers like myself.
So instead, you should try a fun website like Aztekera.
You can paste sections of your novel into Aztekera, click on the check button and get both a percentage of ‘to be’ verbs and a listing of the individual lines.
Now, Aztekera won’t tell you which passive sentences you should keep, if any. It’s not your mother. It won’t make you chicken soup when you’re sick either.
But it will give a quick way to see if you’re writing actively or passively.
Don’t be a Passive Patsy!
~ Tirzah