The most memorable writing, in my estimation, comes from carefully planned out metaphors or similes and personification intermixed with a mere sprinkling of passive sentences. "Artsy" writing is what I call it. Pulitzer prizes and other awards adorn authors who praise the metaphor and personification words to their advantage. Locking these creative doses with simple passive sentences tone down the heavy medley, and instead blossom forth what the writer is actually trying to say. Succinct and precise words describe a scene to additionally complement the sentences.
A metaphor or simile describes something using words that are not literal to explain further with figures of speech, phrases or symbols. The simile adds "as" or "like" to the entity to mellow out the figure of speech, while the metaphor is straight-on with its descriptive words. Personification adds life to an object or abstract notion. Passive voice sentences use 1) non-active verbs, and 2) pose the object at the beginning of the sentence and the subject placed at the end of the sentence preceded with the word "by."
Example: (metaphor) She gossips a lot, talks about others behind her back. She is a snake.
Example: (simile) She gossips a lot, talks about others behind her back, like a snake.
Example: (personification) She sat down in the velveteen chair, the wings rounding off her arms to its sides, its purple plush caressing the girl's shape, softening her grief.
Example: (passive voice) A man was struck by a car while crossing Main and Oak Streets. (An active voice would be "A car struck a man while crossing Main and Oak Streets;" notice the passive voice has the man (object) in the front of the sentence instead of the car (subject) as in the active voice.)
Other passive voice sentences contain non-active verbs, such as linking verbs: She made it to the play. This may seem very bland, but mixed with active sentences, it can abruptly halt the reader to sum up all the active sentences to one meaningful statement.
