A sentence construction where the subject performs the action, producing direct, clear prose: "She kicked the door" instead of "The door was kicked."
Active voice is the standard sentence structure in English where the subject does the acting: subject, verb, object. "Marcus opened the letter." "The storm leveled the barn." "She lied." It puts the actor front and center, keeps sentences shorter, and gives your prose a forward-driving energy. Most writing advice boils down to "use active voice" because it's the default way English speakers think, talk, and process information.
Active voice is the engine of readable fiction. It keeps your reader moving through the story, makes action scenes land harder, and prevents the vagueness that passive constructions invite. When your character does something, your reader should feel it happening. Active voice is how you make that happen on a sentence level.
Nearly every sentence is active voice with short, muscular construction. "He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff" drives the entire novella's style.
McCarthy's stripped-down prose relies almost entirely on active constructions. "He pushed the cart" and "The boy watched" create relentless forward motion even in a story about stasis.
The narrator's voice is built on punchy active sentences that mirror the aggressive, no-nonsense philosophy of the story: "I am Jack's wasted life."
Rigid adherence to active voice makes prose monotonous. Passive voice serves a purpose when the receiver of the action matters more than the actor, or when you're varying rhythm deliberately.
Active voice can be long and complex: "The old woman who lived at the end of Maple Street and never spoke to anyone picked up the telephone and called the police." Active doesn't mean choppy.
Some genres and moods benefit from the distance that passive or more complex constructions create. Match your voice to your story's needs.
Write a single scene of 200 words using only active voice - no "was," "were," "been," or "being" allowed. Describe a character arriving home to discover something unexpected. Then rewrite the same scene allowing passive constructions where they feel natural. Compare the energy and pacing of both versions.