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“Just change your passive verbs to active ones and you’ll be fine.”

Strengthening your prose isn’t always that simple, though.

Here are two examples of passive voice being changed to active voice (see what I did there?), each with a different approach.

1) “Polo is chased around the pool by Marco.”

This straightforward example shows us the potential wastefulness of passive voice. Switch the subject and verb around:

“Marco chased Polo around the pool.” We removed is chased…by and found a stronger, more concise sentence.

2) “I was dressed in a burgundy suit with a matching tie.”

The passive verb “was dressed” requires a different approach, because we’re not trying to say A burgundy suit with a matching tie dressed me. A different verb is required:

“I wore a burgundy suit with a matching tie.” In this case, we kept the pieces where they were and changed the verb instead.

“To be dressed in” = “to wear.”

Now we can see the ingredients of passive voice: a subject, a verb, and an object. By playing with position and exchanging words with specific meanings, we can find the strongest way to express an idea.

But why does passive voice exist if we’re not going to use it?

Excellent leading question! Friday: when to use passive voice.

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