You've finished a draft. You send it to a beta reader and they come back saying it feels "distant" or "slow." One of the most common culprits is passive voice — a grammatical construction that, when overused, puts a layer of glass between your reader and the story.
This guide will show you exactly what passive voice is, how to find it in your manuscript, and how to rewrite it into prose that feels alive.
What is passive voice?
In an active sentence, the subject performs the action: Sarah opened the door. In a passive sentence, the subject receives the action: The door was opened by Sarah.
The same event — the same door, the same Sarah — but the passive version is four words longer and somehow less vivid. The reader is watching from further away.
Grammatically, passive voice is formed by combining a form of "to be" (was, were, is, are, been, being, be) with a past participle (a verb usually ending in -ed):
- The letter was written by her.
- The window had been broken.
- Mistakes were made.
- The plan is being reviewed.
Quick test: Can you add "by zombies" to the end of the sentence and have it still make grammatical sense? "Mistakes were made by zombies." If yes — it's passive. (Credit to Rebecca Johnson, who coined this trick.)
How to spot passive voice in your manuscript
The most reliable signal is a "to be" verb immediately followed by a past participle. Train your eye to pause whenever you see: was, were, is, are, been, being — and check what comes next.
Common patterns to watch for:
- was [verb]ed — "She was surprised"
- were [verb]ed — "They were told to leave"
- had been [verb]ed — "The note had been left on the table"
- is being [verb]ed — "The city is being watched"
If you're editing a long manuscript, doing this manually is exhausting. Inkcheck's passive voice detector highlights every instance automatically so you can focus on deciding which ones to rewrite — not hunting for them.
Before and after examples
Here are common passive constructions rewritten into active voice:
The decision was made by the council after hours of debate.
The council made the decision after hours of debate.
She was told by her mother never to speak of it again.
Her mother told her never to speak of it again.
The letter had been written in haste, the ink still smeared.
Someone had written the letter in haste — ink still smeared.
The window was shattered by the force of the explosion.
The explosion shattered the window.
Notice that the active versions are consistently shorter, more direct, and put a clear subject in charge of the action.
When passive voice is actually fine
Passive voice isn't wrong — it's overuse that weakens writing. There are cases where passive is genuinely the better choice:
- When the doer is unknown: "The body was discovered at dawn." (We don't know who found it.)
- When the doer is irrelevant: "The road was built in 1887." (Who built it doesn't matter.)
- When you deliberately withhold the subject for suspense or effect: "She had been followed."
- In scientific or formal writing where the convention is to de-emphasise the researcher: "The samples were tested at 37°C."
- When the receiver of the action is more important: "The king was assassinated." (The king matters more than the assassin — for now.)
Rule of thumb: One or two passive constructions per page is fine. When they start appearing multiple times per paragraph, that's when readers feel the drag.
Step-by-step: how to rewrite passive voice
When you find a passive construction you want to fix, follow this process:
- Find the real actor. Who or what is actually doing the thing? If it's stated ("by her"), move it to the front. If it's implied, invent a subject.
- Put the actor first. Make them the subject of the sentence.
- Use the main verb directly. Remove the "to be" auxiliary. "Was written" becomes "wrote." "Were given" becomes "gave."
- Reconstruct the sentence. You may need to reorder other elements — the original object often becomes the object again.
- Read it aloud. Does it sound more immediate? If yes, keep it. If it sounds awkward, try a different active construction or leave it passive.
Passive voice in fiction vs non-fiction
In fiction — especially action-driven or first-person narrative — passive voice can create a subtle emotional flatness. When a character is described as acted upon rather than acting, they feel less like a protagonist and more like a prop. Your reader wants to inhabit your character's perspective, and passive voice makes that harder.
Compare: "She was pushed against the wall" vs "Someone shoved her against the wall." The second version forces the reader to feel the impact.
In literary fiction, passive voice can be used deliberately to create psychological distance — a character who dissociates, or a narrator reflecting on events with detachment. This is craft, not error. But it requires intention, not accident.
In non-fiction and essays, active voice makes arguments feel more confident. "It has been argued" is weaker than "Scholars argue." "Mistakes were made" is the politician's passive — it implies accountability without assigning it.
Check your manuscript automatically
Hunting for passive voice manually in a 90,000-word manuscript is grinding work. Inkcheck highlights every passive construction in your text instantly — colour-coded alongside filler words, repetition, clichés, and other style flags. Free to use, no account needed, your text never leaves your browser.