: Re: Fiction Novels & Active vs. Passive Voice Before I launch into this, I've perused these threads and they don't quite answer the specific question I have in mind: When to keep the passive voice

@Hamaas631

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Forget any rules you've heard about passive voice! Instead, learn exactly what is happening when you use a passive voice, and use it well. How do you learn? Through close reading! A good writer is able to predict the range of inferences stirred up in a reader by her sentences.

Here's an example:

The officer hit Jeff. --VS-- Jeff was hit by the officer.

The officer hit Jeff.
- Without context the reader assumes the officer hit Jeff intentionally.
- Emphasis on the officer's agency/power to act.
- Emphasis that the officer acted and not someone else
- The sentence reveals almost nothing about Jeff other than having been hit

Jeff was hit by the officer.
- Unclear whether the hit was intentional.
- Emphasis that Jeff was the one hit and not someone else.
- Emphasis on the fact that the act happened (Jeff was hit)
- Jeff loses agency in the world
- The officer perhaps acted as a part of a larger system rather than as an individual

The key is to ensure the sets of inferences your sentence structures generate are the ones you want. In a story about police cruelty, you would probably write, "The officer hit Jeff." In a story in which Jeff is a powerless character, you might write, "Jeff was hit by the officer."

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