Amy Tan’s verbs capture internal action and emotion.

Embedded in all that verbal activity is one splendid passive verb: “His pale eyes were frosted with sun glare.” Form follows function. The eyes, in real life, received the action of the sun, so the subject receives the action of the verb. That’s the writing tool: use passive verbs to call attention to the receiver of the action.

If the subject performs the action of the verb, we call the verb active. • If the subject receives the action of the verb, we call the verb passive. • A verb that is neither active nor passive is a linking verb, a form of the verb to be.

Active verbs move the action and reveal the actors. • Passive verbs emphasize the receiver, the victim. • The verb to be links word and ideas. These choices are not merely aesthetic.

1. Read through the New York Times or your local newspaper with a pencil in hand. Mark the locations of subjects and verbs. 2. Do the same with examples of your writing. 3. Do the same with a draft you are working on now. 4. The next time you struggle with a sentence, rewrite it by placing subject and verb at the beginning. 5. For dramatic variation,

Read Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and study emphatic word order. 2. With a pencil in hand, read an essay you admire. Circle the first and last words in each paragraph. 3. Do the same for recent examples of your work. Revise sentences so that powerful and interesting words, which may be hiding

Use the long sentence to describe something long. Let form follow function.

Strong verbs create action, save words, and reveal the players.

That’s the writing tool: use passive verbs to call attention to the receiver of the action.