Active or
Passive Voice?
Passive and Active
Sheep
P eople may use the passive voice in
their writing, or mix passive and active voices without knowing the difference.
Should you use the active or passive voice in writing your history—and what is “voice”
anyway?
“Voice” is the way verbs express
action—either in the active or passive voice. Note the following examples:
I read
the story. (Active voice)
The story was
read. (Passive voice)
She told me
to leave and never come back. (Active voice)
I was told
to leave and never come back. (Passive voice)
The man chased
Anna down the dark alley. (Active voice)
Anna was
chased down the dark alley by the man. (Passive voice)
The passive voice subdues
emotion and obscures the doer of the action. It’s used mostly in scientific and
technical writing. The passive voice stresses WHAT is done while the active
voice stresses the DOER of the action.
It’s best to use the active voice in
your history writing, (and most writing), because it’s more vibrant,
interesting, forceful, and alive. It’s less likely to put the reader to sleep
and is more personal and human.
If there
is a particular incident you’d like to subdue on purpose, there could be a use for
the passive voice. For instance, maybe you’ve married into the family of a long-ago
enemy and you want to soft pedal an incident to avoid offending family. Instead
of using the active voice and writing this: “The guards lined the captives
up against the wall and killed them.”
You could use a less active verb and write in the passive voice: “The captives were lined up against the
wall and shot.” Or simply, “The
captives were shot.”
If
you’re in doubt, stick to the active voice. It’s one more way to hang on to
your reader, infuriated or not. J
Point of View
My Point of View (up close and personal)
T here
are two best viewpoints for writing a family or personal history. You can write
in the first person, “I,” viewpoint,
or you can write in the third person,
“he/she/John/Mary” viewpoint. Each has its challenges.
The
first person point of view is personal and interesting. You tell the story according
to how you think, hear, know, see, and feel. But that is also your limitation.
You can’t step out of your own skin and into someone else’s without creating
confusion. The temptation is also to get caught up in telling the story and
forget to include description, action, and even dialogue.
In the
third person perspective, you have broader control and have the advantage of
changing your focus from one character to another, but this point of view is
less personal and interesting. You are telling his and/or her story and may be
tempted to switch into your own first person viewpoint. Don’t do it, it will
confuse your reader.
It’s
best to pick a viewpoint and stick with it.
Here are
some examples of first and third person writing:
First Person
I spent
the summer watching Dad build the extension on the living room. I always seemed
to be in his way and got stepped on or clunked on the head many times before I
learned. Dad asked me to bring him
tools, and though I tried, I took him the wrong tools so many times that he
nick-named me Second-Time Tilly. It was funny but I was determined to be a
First-Time Tilly. Eventually I learned the correct names for all of his tools
and felt quite proud of myself as a helper.
Third Person
Mike
built an extension on the living room of his house that summer. His little
daughter always seemed to be under foot, and got hurt many times. He often asked
her to bring him tools, but she brought him the wrong tools so many times that
he nick-named her Second-Time Tilly. By the end of the summer he’d trained her
to know all the names of the tools and to be quite a helper.
Decide what viewpoint will best
help you tell your story, and either one, enjoy making it as interesting as you can.
His or Her Point of View
