The northeaster has passed and sun shines on the Delaware River this morning. I drove to the waterfront to check the Mariner and found that the rusted steel centerboard hadn't floated away from where we left it on Wednesday. With fair weather forecast for most of the week, I may get back to grind off the steel shims that kept the board from dropping out of the trunk. Then it will be ready for re-installation.
But that won't happen before I get my current job finished. I'm "polishing" the manuscript for Swimming in the Shadow of Death. I'm about one-third the way through the 95,000 word document.
Keith, my editor at Lyons Press, mentioned that I might want to change some of the sentences structured in the passive voice to an active voice. It has been a very, very long time since I was schooled in grammar, so I had to Google active and passive to figure out what he meant.
In a passive sentence, the action happens to an object or a person. In an active sentence, the person or object takes the action. I'ts the difference between saying: The ship was sunk and The ship sank.
I did recall, once I investigated, having been told (passive) by an editor many years ago to quit using passive sentences. They are too ladylike. They lack force, he said (active).
In my search for passive sentences to convert, I'm finding that the story is really pretty gripping. That's pleasing. And Keith was right. The rewrite is improving the prose.