Dec 31 2009 03:44 am
Posted by admin under marketing
Write Actively
An active sentence works better than a passive one. The cat sat on the mat (active) is simpler and clearer than the mat was sat on by the cat (passive).
The reader’s brain works faster than their eye. If you start a sentence the attack… they may already be thinking about tanks, or vitriolic newspaper articles or a mugger in a dark alley.
If the sentence goes on the attack on the castle… the reader may have to discard previous pictures and now they may be thinking about a knight in shining armour. If the compete sentence reads the attack on the castle was carried out by Zorro, they discard all previous images and come up with a completely new one.
Conjuring up all these images is hard work and it can leave the reader confused. It is much clearer to work out the action in a sentence the attack and who took that action Zorro and put the actor first, then the action, and then the scenery the castle.
Actor – action – scenery
Zorro attacked the castle
Strict grammarians call the actor the subject of a sentence, the action the verb and the scenery the object.
Subject – verb – object is the definition of an active sentence and those are the best sentences to use.
Sometimes you will think you need a passive sentence but, really, you don’t:
My house was broken into last night (passive).
You don’t know who broke into your house (there is no subject) so you cannot make the sentence active. But you do know who broke into your house, you just think you don’t:
Thieves broke into my house last night (active).
