Passive voice isn't always wrong, but heavy passive often hides agency in fiction or muddles instructions in technical writing. This detector flags every passive sentence in your text inline, marks the ones with a "by ..." agent (the easiest to flip back to active), and scores you from "active prose" to "heavy passive, consider revising."
The short version
Passive: "The window was broken." We know what happened to the window but not who broke it.
Active: "Tom broke the window." Subject acts on object. Clearer, shorter, more vivid.
The passive form is built with a "be" verb (is, was, were, been, being, get, got) plus a past participle (broken, eaten, written, thrown). The detector flags this pattern wherever it appears.
When passive is the right call
- The actor is unknown or irrelevant. "The car was stolen overnight." We don't know who and it doesn't matter for the sentence's purpose.
- The receiver is the focus. Medical writing routinely uses passive: "The patient was admitted at 3 a.m." The patient is the focus, the admitting clinician isn't.
- Deliberate obscuring. "Mistakes were made." Famous political dodge. The construction lets you acknowledge a fact without assigning blame.
- Scientific writing. Convention prefers passive in methods sections: "Samples were collected weekly." Tradition, not necessity, but it's the genre expectation.
When passive is hurting your prose
- Hiding the actor when the actor matters. "The decision was made" leaves the reader wondering who decided. If it's your character making the decision, name them.
- Adding length without value. "The cake was eaten by John" is 6 words. "John ate the cake" is 4. Same meaning, faster delivery.
- Distancing the reader from action. Fight scenes, chase scenes, anything kinetic. Passive constructions deflate the urgency. "He was struck by the bullet" reads slower than "The bullet hit him."
- Accidental over-use. Once you write "was [past-participle]" twice, you tend to keep doing it. The detector helps you notice the pattern.
How to revise a passive sentence
- Find the actor. If there's a "by ..." phrase, the actor is right there. If not, decide whether the sentence reveals it.
- Move the actor to the subject position. "The cake was eaten by John" → "John ate the cake."
- Replace "be + participle" with a single verb. "Was struck" becomes "hit". "Was given" becomes "received" or "got". "Was being followed" becomes "followed" or "trailed".
- Decide whether to keep some passive on purpose. Not every flagged sentence needs fixing. The goal is conscious choice, not zero passive.
What this tool can't do
Stative passives. "The door is locked" describes a state, not an action being done to the door. The detector flags it because it matches the pattern, but it's not the same problem.
Linking-verb constructions. "She was tired" uses "was" + adjective ending in -ed. The detector won't always tell adjective-tired from past-participle-tired. False positive risk.
Genre judgment. 30% passive in a legal brief is fine. 30% in a thriller is not. The percentage alone tells you nothing. Context does.