Passive Voice Misuse: 11 Examples + Major Fixes

If you’ve spent any time on the internet looking up advice, you’ve probably come across “don’t use passive voice” at least a dozen times. But passive voice misuse isn’t intuitive. Most of us can’t even remember what the heck it is since we only learned about it briefly in school.

Regardless, passive voice should be removed from your writing.

See what I did there? If not, you’re in the right place, and by the end of this article, you’ll giggle thinking back to this intro.

Here’s what we’ll cover when it comes to passive voice and its misuse:

What is passive voice?

In grammar, passive voice occurs when the subject of a sentence receives the action rather than performing it. Something is done to something, instead of that thing being the one to do it. This is where “passive” comes from.

If you allow something to happen to you, you are passive. If you do something, you are active. Your sentences are the same way, and the subject is “you” in this scenario.

This is often constructed with a form of “to be” followed by a past participle.

Example of Passive Voice:

The cake was eaten by the children.

Here, the cake is the subject, but it’s not doing the action; the children are. Therefore, it’s passive.

Example of Active Voice:

• The children ate the cake.

Active voice makes the subject of the sentence the doer of the action, resulting in more direct and lively writing.

Why is passive voice misuse bad?

Now, readers (for the most part) aren’t going to knock your writing because they’ve noticed you use passive voice. It’s more about the effects of it than anything grammatical.

Misusing passive voice in your writing can lead to several problems for readers:

1. Lack of Clarity: Sentences can become ambiguous or convoluted.
   • Passive: Mistakes were made. (Who made them?)
   • Active: The manager made mistakes.
2. Wordiness: Passive voice often requires more words to convey the same idea, which is why many authors have to cut word count—and why editing for passive voice misuse reduces word count.
   • Passive: The report was written by Sarah. (6 words)
   • Active: Sarah wrote the report. (4 words)
3. Weakened Impact: Passive constructions can make writing feel less dynamic or authoritative altering the mood and overall tone of the story.
   • Passive: A decision was reached.
   • Active: The team reached a decision.
4. Reader Confusion: Overusing passive voice can obscure the subject, leaving readers unsure about who is doing what.

While passive voice isn’t inherently wrong, frequent misuse can detract from the quality of your writing. Some writers use it out of habit, while others rarely struggle with it. Sometimes it’s more of a bad habit in writing than it is grammatical confusion.

So if you’ve found your writing full of passive voice misuse, don’t worry!

11 examples of passive voice misuse to avoid

Let’s take a look at some passive voice misuse examples and the problems them present for the reader. Of course, these one-off examples might not seem like a big deal, but if you fill your book with them, it will create an overall tonal effect that can lead readers to describe your book as boring, slow, or confusing.

We’ll showcase the fixes down below.

Problem	Passive Voice
Ambiguous Responsibility	The data was analyzed.
Unnecessary Wordiness	The proposal was approved by the board of directors.
Detached Tone in Fiction	The villain was defeated by the hero.
Overuse in Descriptions	The painting was admired by many visitors.
Avoidance of Responsibility	Errors were made in the calculation.
Awkward Construction in Dialogues	It is believed by many that the policy is flawed.
Unclear Cause and Effect	The crops were damaged by the storm.
Impersonal Business Writing	The project was completed ahead of schedule.
Vague or Weak Subjects	A decision was made to terminate the project.
Overuse in Technical Writing	The system is being updated to enhance performance.
Lack of Ownership of Effect	The woman is being harassed by the man.

How to fix passive voice misuse in writing

Before you can even fix it, you have to become aware of how and when you use it. There are a lot of tools and writing software that can help with this. Grammarly and Hemingway Editor are just a couple examples of them specifically made to edit, while something like NovelPad is a writing software with a built-in editor to catch these errors.

How to find passive voice in your writing:

1. Take your manuscript and upload it to whichever editing platform you choose.
2. Hover over any underlined areas, or click on the section where it indicates “passive voice misuse”
3. Choose to edit it yourself or allow the editor’s AI to update the instances

Here’s what passive voice misuse looks like in NovelPad:

If you were to take your manuscript and paste it in Hemingway Editor, it would look like this (notably, you will need the premium version of this app to automatically fix passive voice misuse):

How to fix passive voice:

If you choose to use software, the click of a button can often fix the issue. Otherwise, you’ll have to do the fixes yourself. I recommend a combination of both.

It’s important to learn your poor writing habits and be able to fix them, which is more easily done when you can rewrite them yourself.

That said, here are the fixes for the passive voice misuse cases from above.

Problem	Passive Voice	The Fix
Ambiguous Responsibility	The data was analyzed.	The analyst analyzed the data
Unnecessary Wordiness	The proposal was approved by the board of directors.	The board of directors approved the proposal.
Detached Tone in Fiction	The villain was defeated by the hero.	The hero defeated the villain.
Overuse in Descriptions	The painting was admired by many visitors.	Many visitors admired the painting.
Avoidance of Responsibility	Errors were made in the calculation.	The team made errors in the calculation.
Awkward Construction in Dialogues	It is believed by many that the policy is flawed.	Many believe the policy is flawed.
Unclear Cause and Effect	The crops were damaged by the storm.	The storm damaged the crops.
Impersonal Business Writing	The project was completed ahead of schedule.	Our team completed the project ahead of schedule.
Vague or Weak Subjects	A decision was made to terminate the project.	The team decided to terminate the project.
Overuse in Technical Writing	The system is being updated to enhance performance.	Technicians are updating the system to enhance performance.
Lack of Ownership of Effect	The woman is being harassed by the man.	The man is harassing the woman.

Can passive voice ever be a good thing?

Every choice you make in writing will have an effect on the reader. Books with excess levels of passive voice misuse will read as slower paced or boring. But that can be a choice, and not all of it is considered passive voice misuse.

If you have a character who is supposed to be passive as the beginning of their character arc, then it makes sense to use passive voice. This is actually a writing skill to be wielded intentionally. Because when your character starts to make the behavioral shift from passive to active in the story, you can then change the narrative to use more active voice.

The reader will feel the difference, even if they won’t notice it grammatically.

Plus, there are plenty instances of famous authors using passive voice in their works. Here are some examples:

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Passive Voice Example: “The lawn was shadowed and the house was silent.”

The subjects (lawn and house) are receiving the states of being shadowed and silent.

Intentional Use Purpose: Fitzgerald wants to give the impression that something is indeed shadowing the house, and here, the suggestion of the house being silent indicates that it’s not normally. Both of these create an effect for the reader that tells them more about the estate.

2. 1984 by George Orwell

Passive Voice Example: “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

Intentional Use Purpose: “The clocks were striking thirteen” uses a passive-like construction where the clocks themselves aren’t actively doing much, but the phrasing creates a surreal tone, which is exactly the feeling the author is going for in the very opening of this book.

3. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

Passive Voice Example: “A faint, pinkish glow was visible at the distant horizon.”

Intentional Use Purpose: The glow (subject) is passively described as being visible, focusing on its state rather than the action of being seen. This frames the scene in specific way, giving the reader a perspective the author was going for.

So all of this is to say that yes, passive voice can be a good thing. The difference is knowing how to use it to your advantage as the artist who uses words.

Do you remember the intro, when I asked if you saw what I did? It’s because the sentence “Regardless, passive voice should be removed from your writing.” is an example of passive voice misuse. If you were to make this an active sentence, it would read:

“You should remove passive voice from your writing.” And at this point I will add, but only if you’re not using it intentionally.