Gem Writing #2: Passive Voice

What is Passive Voice?

No, passive voice is not when shy people read Shakespeare in front of class.  Passive voice is a writing style. Although it is usually frowned upon when used, passive voice is not necessarily a bad writing technique.

Passive voice is when you make the object of an action the subject of a sentence. You are taking whoever or whatever is performing the action and no longer making it the main grammatical subject of the sentence.

Why did the chicken cross the road? The chicken crosses the road.

“Chicken” is the subject of the sentence and the “road” is the object. How can we change the sentence so that "road” is the subject?

            Why was the road crossed by the chicken? The road was crossed by the chicken.

Since it is the chicken who is the thing that is doing an actual action (crossing, the road just stays there), writers will tend to make it the actual subject of the sentence.

To re-write a sentence in the passive voice, you need to flip the subject with the object.

 

Rewrite your original Gem writing piece (the one where you came up with your own version of the Weem's Weekly) in the passive voice. It may not be possible to change every sentence into the passive voice, but change as much as you can.