Beat Passive Voice: Hemingway Ap

The bane of all good writing is overusing the passive voice. For example, "She pushes play and the quiet is broken by a bitterly insistent, poetry-slam rhythm of frustration." The passive voice element of this sentence is "quiet is broken." It should read: "She pushes play the a bitterly insistent, poetry-slam rhythm of frustration breaks the quiet."

As you can see, the second sentence reads better and has a better flow to it. I could probably get rid of the adverb as well in order to tighten the sentence, but that is more a choice of preference as opposed to necessity.

Finding and eliminating passive voice can be difficult unless you are finely attuned to it as an experienced editor would be. One way to cheat a little is to use software to your advantage. For example, the Hemingway Ap (here) does a good job of hunting down passive voice. It also will find adverbs for you as well.

Using this ap as an editing tool will not only help you remove passive voice from your writing, but will tune you into passive voice as you write.