Version A:

The face in the mirror could have been a portrait done in faded ink. It was parchment-pale, with faint shadows that lay under eye and cheekbone. Eyes and lashes were drawn in brown, and the hair was like a heap of paper which, burnt, crumbles to dark tissue.
There were hands busy with that hair, busy with brush and comb and curling tongs: attempting to pile it in rigid, regal coils and adorn it with gold and pearls, but even as one lock was secured, another would slip softly free of its clasp and fall back to its original position.
She thought, watching the hands become more and more impatient, that maybe her hair was the one part of her that dared offer even a token resistance to what they were doing. The rest of her was too trained and moulded in unquestioning obedience to be able to do even that.

Version B:

The face in the mirror could have been mistaken for a portrait in faded ink. It seemed parchment-pale, with shadows that lay under eye and cheekbone. Brown ink had drawn the eyes and lashes, and the hair looked like paper which, burnt, crumbles to dark tissue.
Hands busied themselves with that hair, attempting to pile it in coils and adorn it with gold and pearls, but even as they secured one lock, another slipped free of its clasp and fell back to its original position.
She thought, watching the hands moving more and more impatiently, that maybe only her hair dared offer even a token resistance to what they wanted. The rest of her, trained and moulded in obedience, could not rebel.

Passive voice, while a useful tool, is a real killer if overused. But in both of these versions, passive voice is almost a symptom of another, deeper problem, rather than the problem itself.

First, I’m not sure that you really understand what passive voice is. Version B contains almost as much passive voice as version A. So let me give you a definition: passive voice is when the subject of the
sentence is not the executor of the sentence’s verb. It is NOT when the verb is some form of “to be” (although there are lots of reasons for avoiding this overworked verb, as well), so taking “was” out and putting “seemed” in doesn’t change much. An example: in version A you start with, “The face in the mirror could have been a portrait done in faded ink.” This is not passive voice. “The face” (the subject) is the thing that “could have been” (the verb). However, in version B, you’ve changed it to, “The face in the mirror could have been mistaken for a portrait in faded ink.” NOW, it’s passive voice. “The face” is not the entity doing the mistaking. Someone or something unknown “could have mistaken” the face for a portrait.

Having said that, I’ll go to what I think is the underlying cause of your use of passive voice. You’ve distanced yourself from all the characters. They don’t seem to exist in themselves. Let’s start with “she” or “her”. I’m sure you’ve given your character a name; why don’t we know it? I’m going to call her Olga (and I hope that’s not the name you’ve chosen!). It’s Olga’s face, and Olga’s reflection; and, more importantly, it’s Olga’s perception that you’re writing about. You should start out with that. One of the most annoying ways (to me) of starting a story is to discuss the viewpoint character in pronouns only. This really distances the reader from the character, instead of garnering sympathy or empathy. Use the name, unless either 1) you have some reason to DELIBERATELY maintain an emotional distance from the character, or 2) you are trying to hide the character’s true identity.

Later, you have “hands” fiddling with Olga’s hair. Whose hands? My first thought was that they were Olga’s, but then I decided that more was being attempted than one pair of hands could handle. (That’s in version A. In version B, if I hadn’t read version A first, I might have thought the hands were Olga’s until the third paragraph.) A common error in writing (even among professionals, I’m afraid) is to describe action in terms of body parts rather than the individual: “A hand reached out from under the covers and slapped the ‘sleep’ button to still the raucous sound of the alarm clock,” rather than “Randall reached out with a groan and . . . .” So, whose hands are these? I assume that they belong to servants. Say so. Then the servants are the individuals acting, and it’s easy to avoid passive voice.

I’m now going to do what I almost never do: I’m going to give you a rewrite. I don’t expect you to use my version, and I certainly don’t expect you to use the name Olga. But I do think that my version avoids the errors that I’ve discussed above. I tried to stick with your version B as much as possible (aside from the passive voice problem, and a few cases of improved word choice, such as “sepia” instead of “brown ink,” for example), but toward the end I made more substantial changes. So it’s a good thing this selection wasn’t any longer.

And by the way, folks, I am NOT asking for critiques on my version. If you want to tell Immi you like hers better, that’s fine, but don’t bother telling ME what I did wrong. It’s not my story; I don’t want to hear it. When I put my own stuff up here, you can tear that apart to your heart’s content.

So here is
Version C:

Olga stared moodily at her reflection, which resembled a portrait in faded ink. Shadows nestled under eye and cheekbone, the only highlights of her parchment-pale face. Her sepia eyes and lashes served as faint contrast, and her disordered hair sat atop the rest like a pile of paper that had burned to dark ash.
Her servants struggled with that hair now, attempting to pile it in coils and adorn it with gold and pearls, but even as they secured one lock, another slipped free of its clasp and fell back to its original position. Olga felt utterly defeated. Only my hair is unvanquished by my obedience training. Only my hair dares offer even a token resistance.

==================

Hope this is helpful, Immi.

I thought the hands were the woman's, too, until Rick suggested otherwise. That's one problem with not identifying characters. Pronouns become a problem. In "...even token resistance to what they were doing...." "they" are the hands, since no one else has been presented.

First, give the character a name, and write from her POV. Others can be nameless (and in passive voice, as they are here). She is leaving them nameless (as are you).

I think that there are tense problems in the last part, where you write about how only her hair still resists.

quote:

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Only my hair is unvanquished by my obedience training. Only my hair dares offer even a token resistance.

---

I think that it should be: "Only her hair was unvanquished by her obedience," because the whole thing is in 3rd limited, and you do not indicate that you are quoting her thoughts exactly.

*Sorry for getting off topic: :sheepish grin:

First, though, I have to say that it is NOT necessary to say "she thought" or to put thoughts in italics. OSC does it this way all the time, bopping into and out of the characters head without any sort of typographical notation at all.

However, he's very good at knowing just when and how to do it. If you don't do it at the right time, or haven't prepared for it properly, it jars the reader. Obviously, the way I did it jarred Phanto. It wasn't a tense error, or any kind of grammatical error, but if it jars the reader, well, that's about as big an error as one can make.

I thought about that before I did it, and I wondered if it would bother people, but I did it anyway, I guess because I felt like it. Also, for me, it worked here. But I think that one reason OSC does it so successfully is just that he does it all the time. By doing it carefully at the beginning, he trains the reader to expect it. As this was an opening paragraph, it might have been a good idea to include a "she thought" after the first sentence, to get the reader into the mode.

So, Immi, though this doesn't have anything to do with your reasons for posting your fragment, the fact that I included it in my rewrite sort of makes it part of the topic. You can do it this way; it's perfectly legitimate; but if you want to include actual thoughts, without italics or a thinker attribution, you have to be careful about it.

Write it from her POV, as she watches the mirror, feeling detached from herself.

quote:

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Elea sat quietly, almost numb, watching the mirror. The face in the mirror could have been a portrait done in faded ink. No motion, no true color betrayed life. It was parchment-pale, with faint shadows that lay under eye and cheekbone. It reminded her of the portrait of her mother before Elea was born, or even of her grandmother. Eyes and lashes were drawn in brown, and the hair was like a heap of paper which, burnt, crumbles to dark tissue. That hair was the only true hint that she looked in a mirror, rather than into one of the faded paintings of her ancestresses (is that too weird a word?). The disordered tangle indicated that the portrait weren't finished. There were disembodied hands busy with that hair, artists busy with brush and comb and curling tongs: attempting to pile it in rigid, regal coils and adorn it with gold and pearls, but even as one lock was secured, another would slip softly free of its clasp and fall back to its original position.
She thought, watching the hands become more and more impatient, that maybe her hair was the one part of her that dared offer even a token resistance to what they were doing. The rest of her was too trained and moulded in unquestioning obedience to be able to do even that.

Italics are mine

---

The line should read either "the painters weren't finished" or "the portrait wasn't finished." I just hadn't decided which, and the result was a pretty glaring error ("you weren't finished" would also work, but wouldn't make sense in the context).

And Elea, what kind of name is that? "No motion, no true color betrayed life." What was that about? Yeach.

The complicated answer is that the second time I saw that "weren't", I just had to say something about it...and then that four letter name caught my eye (note to self, add a few silent consonents when making up short names for members of the nobility).

And then I realized that I had particularly mentioned how clever that 'no..,no," line was, and while it isn't bad, it wasn't that special either. Insofar as it works, it works by being direct rather than ambiguous, telling the reader in simple terms exactly what made her face look like a faded ink portrait (and I doubled up on "portrait" rather than using "painting" then 'image").

But the point I was trying to make (in a rather unsubtle yet curiously unclear manner) has to do with the second to last statement of the previous post. There are no "perfect" ways to say something, as I've demonstrated often enough myself.