this is an exercise on active and passive voice.
active - relating to or denoting the voice that attributes the action of the verb to the person or thing from which is logically proceeds - ex. she ran
passive - denoting or relating to a voice of verbs in which the subject undergoes the action of the verb - ex. she was running
what emotions are conveyed by each example? active voice gets the blood pumping and builds tension. why did she run? was she running from or to? what's going on? passive voice is just that; passive. ho hum. she was running, that's nice. passive is more for inner reflection and questions. there is no action involved.
when in the mind of a character passive reveals the character to the reader, but needs active punctuation to keep the reader from becoming indifferent. passive uses more than one verb. usually 'to be' + verb. never use passive as a dialogue tag. 'he was saying' is jarring to the eyeballs.
action ALWAYS needs active. keep readers on the edge of their seats. make them sit up and take notice. during high tension action shorter sentences are better. don't muck about with descriptions. say exactly what's happening and move on to the next action. 'she hit him, spat in his face and ran.' that's a lot of visual in a few short words.
ok now let's put this to use. you have 2 options here. option 1: write a scene all in passive then the same scene all in active (post both together). this will give us an opportunity to see the effects of each doing what they do. option 2: write a scene using both passive and active. a story well laid out is it's own reward. (either way it is ok to post something you have already written, it does not have to be something new)
1 comment:
Yum! This is my huge weakness of mine {tenses too!} - Can't wait to see what everyone does with this exercise.
alisa
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