# Passive Voice and the Word Was



## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

I had a friend email me a sample edit today that she'd gotten from another editor. She was a bit confused because the editor had flagged every instance of the word "was" as "passive voice." I actually run across this from time to time, so I thought I'd post here. If you already know this, great 

Firstly--what makes something passive voice if not the word was? It's whether or not the subject is performing the action or being acted upon. Think about it--if you do something, you're being active. If you just sit there and take it, however, you're being passive 

So, let's use three very simple sentences as examples: 
1) "She was shaking her head." *ACTIVE*
2) "She shook her head." *ACTIVE*
3) Her head was shaken. *PASSIVE*

Example 1: Past progressive / continuous. You want to use this to indicate action that is either still ongoing and also if you have a sequence of events. _She shook her head when I walked in the room._ is very different from _She was shaking her head when I walked in the room._

Example 2: Simple past--She shook her head. This is pretty straightforward. She shook her head and now she's done shaking it.

Example 3: This is passive voice. We know this because her head is the subject of the sentence, but it is not performing the action.

Summation: Please don't go through your manuscript in an effort to eradicate the word _was_. And as always, feel free to ask if you have a question or anything. Hope this helps.


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## Just Browsing (Sep 26, 2012)

Can I also say--for like maybe the millionth time--that even genuine passive voice constructions are not wrong, evil, or even weak? A passive used where an active would be better is not good. But then, an active used where a passive would be better is also not good.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

There is only one thing that's worse than a manuscript in which the word "was" occurs twice every sentence: one in which it doesn't occur at all. That said, overuse is not a good thing.

The passive tense of "shook" is "shaken".


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Patty Jansen said:


> There is only one thing that's worse than a manuscript in which the word "was" occurs twice every sentence: one in which it doesn't occur at all. That said, overuse is not a good thing.
> 
> The passive tense of "shook" is "shaken".


LOL Good point, Patty. That's what I get for just trying to come up with a simple sentence off the top of my head 

Fixed. And that'll teach me to skip over the sample sentences when I proof. Although--there's no such thing as passive tense ;-)


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

1001nightspress said:


> Can I also say--for like maybe the millionth time--that even genuine passive voice constructions are not wrong, evil, or even weak? A passive used where an active would be better is not good. But then, an active used where a passive would be better is also not good.


Amen!


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## johnlmonk (Jul 24, 2013)

I use "was" to indicate those times when "is" or "will be" don't work.  I also use it for certain effects, for example, to purposely make it seem as if you are recounting something, or to lull the reader into a vulnerable state.  Or, most importantly, because I feel that it fits.

How about an example:
1) "I was walking down the street"
2) "I walked down the street"

The first example can set up for a "when" that strikes the reader unaware: "I was walking down the street, when....I got attacked by a grape!"
The second is great for an action sequence or when you need more immediacy: "I walked down the street, looking for my missing cat.  She had to be somewhere. Hopefully she hadn't been attacked by a grape..."

Ok, that "was" my 2 cents.  Maybe if I'm right in my thinking, one day I'll have more than 2 cents to rub together


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

OK, so I hired a pro-pro editor (one who also works for the big publishing houses) to go through an early manuscript. This had been a manuscript that had seen many versions go through critique groups, in which I had eradicated many of my was <verb>ing constructions.

Lo and behold, she put many of them back in.

Lesson: do not sweat this stuff, but be aware of overuse.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Pretty much, Patty. There's a time and place for everything  I go nuts at some of the "Never do _______!" rules.

And John--scary produce


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## johnlmonk (Jul 24, 2013)

Anne Victory said:


> Pretty much, Patty. There's a time and place for everything  I go nuts at some of the "Never do _______!" rules.
> 
> And John--scary produce


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## brie.mcgill (Jun 5, 2013)

As a strange aside, sometimes I like to lay it on thick with passive voice in choice situations, like when characters are drugged, kidnapped, dead (heh), or made otherwise physically immobile. Then again, I'm also the weirdo that likes to get myself... err, my characters... into these types of situations (I love exploring the mind-body split).

Sometimes I worry about an excess of pronouns in conjunction with the active voice (since I've become a stickler for the active voice), and find other ways to make the sentences active with inanimate objects doing the acting. Not sure how I feel about this situation, either. It worked well when I had a character blindfolded (stems back to my problematic fascination with handicapped/augmented states of perception).

Sometimes, it sounds most natural to use the word was. I think if a situation boils down to constructing a horrendously awkward situation that doesn't gel with anyone's idiom, it's better to break a rule here or there, provided 98% of your other sentences comply with coherent English.

Generally, active voice is nice, it's tidy, it zips the story along and will keep someone from getting bored. Generally...

It's like those people who say, "Never use sentence fragments... ever!"

Never make one rule to... uhm... rule them all. Ever.

I had similar mishaps with my first manuscript and the word "had"... I went on a tragic tirade deleting many legitimate instances of "had" that I HAD to add back later.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Anne Victory said:


> I had a friend email me a sample edit today that she'd gotten from another editor. She was a bit confused because *the editor had flagged every instance of the word "was" as "passive voice."* I actually run across this from time to time, so I thought I'd post here. If you already know this, great
> 
> Firstly--what makes something passive voice if not the word was? It's whether or not the subject is performing the action or being acted upon. Think about it--if you do something, you're being active. If you just sit there and take it, however, you're being passive
> 
> ...


ANY editor who was that clueless should be fired on the spot!

ETA: Let's give a very simple example of the difference in active and passive voice.

The dog bit the boy. [Active because the subject (dog) performed the action (bit)]

The boy was bitten by the dog. [Passive because the subject (boy) received the action (was bitten) rather than performing it].

It is pretty easy to see that the passive voice isn't how you_ usually_ want to form your sentences in a story and it is even worse when the prepositional phrase is left off so that the action seems to have been done by no one or anyone in the universe. This is a form of sentence beloved of corporations [Our stock was devalued... (implying that we certainly didn't do it)]. Anything used by corporations, I want to think twice before I use. But that we don't _usually_ use it doesn't mean that we never use it.

But it is the entire sentence structure that makes it passive not the "was". A sentence like this may have "was" in it but certainly is not passive: The dog was growling and bit the boy. "Was growling" is in the PAST PROGRESSIVE TENSE which indicates continuing action, something that was happening, on-going over a period of time, at some point in the past and often used in conjunction with another verb in the simple past.

Any editor who didn't know or understand that simply fact should possibly be executed as a danger to the community.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

JR, wonderful post and I loved your examples  Thank you so much  And I agree times a thousand.

It also occurred to me that a genre that uses (legitimately) passive voice a LOT is mystery, especially detective or police procedurals. Because who says "Blunt-force trauma caused the wound"? I don't think they've ever said that on Law & Order. But they're always saying something like "Our victim was killed by a single gunshot to the head." And that's a-okay.

Nothing wrong with passive 

PS: Thanks for talking about past progressive, too, JR. It trips a lot of people up.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Anne Victory said:


> JR, wonderful post and I loved your examples  Thank you so much  And I agree times a thousand.
> 
> It also occurred to me that a genre that uses (legitimately) passive voice a LOT is mystery, especially detective or police procedurals. Because who says "Blunt-force trauma caused the wound"? I don't think they've ever said that on Law & Order. But they're always saying something like "Our victim was killed by a single gunshot to the head." And that's a-okay.
> 
> ...


You're very welcome. I have seen _soo_o many people mistake past progressive for passive. Neither are something that you use in the majority of your sentences (not most of us anyway) but they both have a use in the right situation.


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## Lummox JR (Jul 1, 2012)

Gads I wish I had a better handle on complex tenses. I usually just have to wing it.

I was made aware some time ago of the dangers of "was", especially the way it ends up in descriptive language. Abandoning it altogether not only seemed stylistically against my nature, but something I couldn't commit to. So I decided merely to keep a closer eye on when it seemed a little weak, and go for something else instead when that came up. Sometimes was is just better.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Everything in moderation


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> You're very welcome. I have seen _soo_o many people mistake past progressive for passive. Neither are something that you use in the majority of your sentences (not most of us anyway) but they both have a use in the right situation.


Yepper. Especially when you consider most books are written in past tense, which means "was" is the current time in the narrative. So if you want something to have already have taken place (a character out for a walk, for instance), you've got to use past progressive because "He was walking" means that he's doing it right now in the story. On the other hand, he had been walking takes care of that, as do other solutions. Today I'm having fun discussing it, yesterday I had my Irish up


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## B.A. Spangler (Jan 25, 2012)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Everything in moderation


Great timing on this thread. Yes moderation.
Too much is bad. Not enough is bad. Find the right balance.

Recently I was dinged a review star because my book was too passive. I read a few chapters and had to agree. I'm back in edit mode, reworking it.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

The passaive voice is your friend, if you know when to use it effectively. And the best time is when you're speeding along in your ZONE, spilling your chapter onto the page for the first time. The determination of when to use it or not, should be reserved for the first pass-revision, when you can use edit programs to highligt passive voice (it's not always obvious). Consistancy counts when using passive tags (one or the other, and usuaully passive tags are reserved for YA and children books). 

A conversion of a "WAS" bound sentence is easy enough. Replace the was with a comma and extend. Thus:

"She was shaking her head." could become "She, shaking her head,  converted the sentence to the active."

Generally, clauses following the various states of "the state of being" can be apothesized, retaining their purpose, heigtening their emphasis in the sentence and, stimulating a morfe complete and, dare I say it, creative thought.

Edward C. Patterson


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

(Just found three wasses a was x 3 in one of my paragraphs )


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## ACboy (Oct 10, 2013)

johnlmonk said:


> I use "was" to indicate those times when "is" or "will be" don't work. I also use it for certain effects, for example, to purposely make it seem as if you are recounting something, or to lull the reader into a vulnerable state. Or, most importantly, because I feel that it fits.
> 
> How about an example:
> 1) "I was walking down the street"
> ...


I'm not sure, but in dialog if that's how a character speaks you have to go with some things that aren't grammatically correct.


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## ACboy (Oct 10, 2013)

A lot of things depend on tone and style. Yes too much of a passive voice can weigh a piece down. However I found something odd when I ran some stories that had been published in reputable literary magazines through Autocrit. Autocrit flagged many passages that needed to be changed. However the Editors of said stories loved the stories. I had made the edits they suggested. Voice and passion count for much in a story. However that does ot excuse blatant spelling and grammar errors.


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## burke_KB (Jan 28, 2013)

1001nightspress said:


> Can I also say--for like maybe the millionth time--that even genuine passive voice constructions are not wrong, evil, or even weak? A passive used where an active would be better is not good. But then, an active used where a passive would be better is also not good.


This. Towards the end of the Old Man and the Sea, when the old man has given up on life, things start happening to him. The writing becomes passive to help show how passive the old man is. That's an advanced technique but also a great example of when to break the rules.


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## ElisaBlaisdell (Jun 3, 2012)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> The passaive voice is your friend, if you know when to use it effectively. And the best time is when you're speeding along in your ZONE, spilling your chapter onto the page for the first time. The determination of when to use it or not, should be reserved for the first pass-revision, when you can use edit programs to highligt passive voice (it's not always obvious). Consistancy counts when using passive tags (one or the other, and usuaully passive tags are reserved for YA and children books).
> 
> A conversion of a "WAS" bound sentence is easy enough. Replace the was with a comma and extend. Thus:
> 
> ...


So, we have two sentences. Let's make them as parallel as possible.

"She was shaking her head as she converted the sentence to the active."
"She, shaking her head, converted the sentence to the active."

I'm not claiming that the first has any special virtues, but it's certainly not written in the passive, so it contains no self-contradiction. However, I think that the second has a stilted, unnatural feeling. How about: "She shook her head as she converted the sentence to the active."


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

ElisaBlaisdell said:


> How about: "She shook her head as she converted the sentence to the active."


Thank you.

People:

There is nothing wrong with using passive voice. I love the example someone raised, _The Old Man and The Sea_. Yes. Passive voice is perfect for characterizing someone in a passive situation.

The word 'was' does not make the voice passive. "Avoid using the word 'was'" is one of those short-cut rules that cause more harm than good because they are not well-thought-out.

Active:
He was mowing the grass.

Passive:
The grass was being mowed by him.

Either might be the most effective way to write this, depending on the focus of the story. Sometimes, he's the focal point. Other times, the grass might be more important.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Now I'm stuck with this paragraph 

_It would be a misnomer to call it the first day of the Spring term for it felt nothing like Spring. It was a typical January day with blustery snow that melted and formed dangerous ice patches overnight. Fred Smith was kept busy salting the entrance to the school and everyone was glad to get inside out of the miserable cold and into the warmth of the school where fur-lined boots were exchanged for school shoes, and damp coats were hung above the radiators in the drying room eliciting a cloying musty aroma. _

Do I need to get rid of the was x 3


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## ElisaBlaisdell (Jun 3, 2012)

Cherise Kelley said:


> Thank you.
> 
> People:
> 
> ...


The virtue and danger of the passive voice is that it can blur or even make invisible the agent that's doing the action.

"Mistakes were made" is the classic bureaucrats' attempt to dodge the fact that they made the mistake.

On the other hand, there are situations where you don't know or care who does the action. 
"All summer long, the yard had not been watered." Sure, you can rewrite that as: "All summer long, nobody had watered the yard." You've avoided the passive, but you haven't added any information. You've changed the emphasis. That's the writer's decision, but it shouldn't be made just to blindly avoid the passive.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> Now I'm stuck with this paragraph
> 
> _It would be a misnomer to call it the first day of the Spring term for it felt nothing like Spring. It was a typical January day with blustery snow that melted and formed dangerous ice patches overnight. Fred Smith was kept busy salting the entrance to the school and everyone was glad to get inside out of the miserable cold and into the warmth of the school where fur-lined boots were exchanged for school shoes, and damp coats were hung above the radiators in the drying room eliciting a cloying musty aroma. _
> 
> Do I need to get rid of the was x 3


Strictly my opinion: the problem with your sentences isn't "was" but your repeated use of the pronoun "it" with no antecedent in phrases (it would and it was) that serve no particular purpose and convey nothing. I'm not making a rule never to do that, but that tends to be a weak structure that takes away from the meaning and strength of what you're saying. Why not:

_The first day of Spring term felt nothing like Spring. Overnight, blustery slow had melted and formed ice patches. Fred Smith was kept busy salting the school entrance and I (he? someone specific. How would you know if everyone was glad?) was glad to get out of the miserable cold and into the warmth. As I shed my fur-lined boots for school shoes, the damp coats hanging above the radiators gave off a cloying (cloying? is a musty smell cloying?  ) musty smell._

That edit was not to get rid of the "was" which is fine when it serves a purpose but to get rid of phrases such as "it would" and "it was" which in this case serve no purpose in the sentences. Just my take on it (and re-writing is a bit rude) so do feel free to ignore my opinion. 

ETA: One of the things I do in an edit is do a universal search of "it was" and look at every single one. Most of the time, they're just me trying to work my way into a sentence that would be better and stronger without.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

JRTomlin said:


> _The first day of Spring term felt nothing like Spring. Overnight, blustery slow had melted and formed ice patches. Fred Smith was kept busy salting the school entrance and I (he? someone specific. How would you know if everyone was glad?) was glad to get out of the miserable cold and into the warmth. As I shed my fur-lined boots for school shoes, the damp coats hanging above the radiators gave off a cloying (cloying? is a musty smell cloying?  ) musty smell._


I like this.

I want to point out that the passive voice is being used effectively here. It is good. I think the passive voice adds to the scene, whereas making it active would detract.

Passive:
Fred Smith was kept busy salting the school entrance...

Active:
Fred Smith kept himself busy salting the school entrance...

The passive voice here does a wonderful job of adding to the oppression that winter has over spring in the story. I love it.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> Strictly my opinion: the problem with your sentences isn't "was" but your repeated use of the pronoun "it" with no antecedent in phrases (it would and it was) that serve no particular purpose and convey nothing. I'm not making a rule never to do that, but that tends to be a weak structure that takes away from the meaning and strength of what you're saying. Why not:
> 
> _The first day of Spring term felt nothing like Spring. Overnight, blustery slow had melted and formed ice patches. Fred Smith was kept busy salting the school entrance and I (he? someone specific. How would you know if everyone was glad?) was glad to get out of the miserable cold and into the warmth. As I shed my fur-lined boots for school shoes, the damp coats hanging above the radiators gave off a cloying (cloying? is a musty smell cloying?  ) musty smell._
> 
> ...


Thanks  Happy for any input. Will do a re-write. I need to point out that _it's_ January. It's still very much a first draft and I'm still trying to remember what wet coats smell like as I've been in a hot climate for the past 40 years. 
It's not first person so I'm the omnipotent observer, observing everyone's gladness  

Is this better?

The first day of Spring term felt nothing like Spring. The typical January weather had brought blustery snow that melted and formed dangerous ice patches overnight. Fred Smith was kept busy salting the entrance to the school and everyone was glad to get inside out of the miserable cold and into the warmth of the school where the girls exchanged fur-lined boots for school shoes, and damp coats were hung above the radiators in the drying room giving off an overbearing musty aroma.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> Thanks  Happy for any input. Will do a re-write. I need to point out that _it's_ January. It's still very much a first draft and I'm still trying to remember what wet coats smell like as I've been in a hot climate for the past 40 years.
> It's not first person so I'm the omnipotent observer, observing everyone's gladness
> 
> Is this better?
> ...


Because I never write omniscient (largely because it sucks when I try lol) I forget that some people do. Nothing wrong with that PoV. I might break up that very long final sentence, but I think all in all it works better.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Cherise Kelley said:


> I like this.
> 
> I want to point out that the passive voice is being used effectively here. It is good. I think the passive voice adds to the scene, whereas making it active would detract.
> 
> ...


To be picky about it, that is not passive. It is Past Progressive.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

JRTomlin said:


> To be picky about it, that is not passive. It is Past Progressive.


I beg to differ. In the passive one, someone or something is keeping Fred busy, other than himself.


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## ElisaBlaisdell (Jun 3, 2012)

JRTomlin said:


> To be picky about it, that is not passive. It is Past Progressive.


To be even more picky, I think that it is passive.



> Fred Smith was kept busy salting the school entrance...


Wouldn't something like this be active:

"The school administratiion kept Fred Smith busy salting the school entrance." Or: "Fred kept himself busy", as above.

And, I feel that changing the sentence to active does not improve it, unless the writer wants our focus to be on the school administration, rather than on Fred Smith.


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## Guest (Oct 11, 2013)

Generally, when I talk about stories being passive to writers, I am not talking about grammar but narrative flow. You can write every sentence in the active voice and still have a passive story if nobody is doing anything of consequence. The bigger problem I find is that writers spend more time worrying about active/passive voice than actually giving their characters interesting stuff to do!


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Modifying my reply since I have my lunch off the stove. 

That works fine so the question of whether it is passive or not is an academic one just to understand how it works and looking at it again, I have to say, I was mistaken. It is indeed passive. My apology. It could easily be past progressive since the action was over time, but in this case it is passive and works fine as that.

That is passive is more easily seen if you add a "by" phrase.

Fred Smith was kept busy by the school board.



Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Generally, when I talk about stories being passive to writers, I am not talking about grammar but narrative flow. You can write every sentence in the active voice and still have a passive story if nobody is doing anything of consequence. The bigger problem I find is that writers spend more time worrying about active/passive voice than actually giving their characters interesting stuff to do!


Julie, a story being passive is quite different from a _sentenc_e being passive. And here *I* beg to differ. That is like saying a carpenter shouldn't know how his tools work. Sentences are my building blocks and I had better know how they go together.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

1001nightspress said:


> Can I also say--for like maybe the millionth time--that even genuine passive voice constructions are not wrong, evil, or even weak? A passive used where an active would be better is not good. But then, an active used where a passive would be better is also not good.


Seriously!!

I would never pay any editor who didn't understand a) what passive voice actually is, and b) that it's not de facto incorrect to use it. In fact, if I ever do decide to hire an editor, I think I'll send them a sample with plenty of "was" and some appropriately used passive voice, and that will be how I judge their skills as an editor.

GRRR.

Vladimir Nabokov was a master of using passive voice to great artistic merit. Anybody who'd think his prose was "wrong" because he used passive voice from time to time is a buffoon.


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## Guest (Oct 11, 2013)

JRTomlin said:


> *****, a story being passive is quite different from a _sentenc_e being passive. And here *I* beg to differ. That is like saying a carpenter shouldn't know how his tools work. Sentences are my building blocks and I had better know how they go together.


I wasn't saying otherwise. I was merely pointing out that some writers spend more time worrying about whether or not a sentence is passive than actually writing an interesting story.


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## Selina Fenech (Jul 20, 2011)

I read a cool article the other day where the writer said they way they help themselves check if a sentence is in passive voice, is to add "by zombies" at the end of it. If the sentence still makes sense with "by zombies" added on, then it's in passive voice.

So using the example from the OP-

2) "She shook her head BY ZOMBIES." Doesn't make sense, so it is ACTIVE
3) "Her head was shaken BY ZOMBIES." WHAT ARE THE ZOMBIES DOING TO HER POOR HEAD? ARRGH!! So that sentence is PASSIVE

   Best way to identify passive sentences ever. I wish I remember where I read it, sorry I can't link.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Selina Fenech said:


> I read a cool article the other day where the writer said they way they help themselves check if a sentence is in passive voice, is to add "by zombies" at the end of it. If the sentence still makes sense with "by zombies" added on, then it's in passive voice.
> 
> So using the example from the OP-
> 
> ...


ha! I love this. (by zombies!)


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

And not a single f❤ck was given that day BY ZOMBIES.

Egad, it works.  

Sorry, Selina, I couldn't resist.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)




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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Cherise Kelley said:


>


Oh, that is _mean_. Funny--but mean.


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## LilithK (Jun 4, 2013)

Loved the Zombie test!  If you don't like Zombies, you could always substitute Ghosts or Vampires. Any of them would work.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

I think I've now caught a case of 'was' police.

I'm reading Lee Child's _The Hard Way_ and in chapter 7 there is an average of one 'was' per paragraph.

_But nobody *was *looking at him. He *was *just a guy in a doorway. 
He rolled onto his back and looked around. The door he *was *blocking *was *a plain grey metal thing._

 Discussion - is this passive?


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## D.A. Boulter (Jun 11, 2010)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> I think I've now caught a case of 'was' police.
> 
> I'm reading Lee Child's _The Hard Way_ and in chapter 7 there is an average of one 'was' per paragraph.
> 
> ...


Is this passive? Yes (my opinion). Is it passive voice? No.

'But nobody was looking at him.' -- progressive. No one at that time was engaged in the process of looking at the character in question. Note the difference between that and: 'No one looked at him.' That's past. It's over. 'was looking' started in the past and is progressing through the present and into the future.

'He was just a guy in a doorway...' -- passive in that he's doing nothing. Not passive voice, however. A more active rendering: 'He lay there, just a guy in a doorway.' Now he's doing something -- lying down -- instead of the more passive just being there.

'The door he was blocking ...' -- again progressive. He began blocking the door sometime in the past, and he continues to block it now, in the present, and will continue to block it into the future.

'... was just a plain grey metal thing.' Again not passive voice, but still passive. The door is just there, existing, doing nothing. It adds little to our knowledge of the man or place.

'He rolled on his back and looked around. The door he lay blocking loomed above him, a plain grey metal thing.' -- gives a look at how he views the door, and thus we learn something about the character and how he's feeling, at least at the moment.

He rolled on his back and looked around. The door he lay blocking appeared cheap and tawdry, just a plain grey metal thing.

Instead of just being there -- 'was' -- the door now 'appears' or 'looms', which is active -- doing something. In the first sentence above, you get a notion of how the character is feeling -- I'm assuming he was knocked out or something of the like, and has just returned to consciousness. He looks up and sees the door 'looming' above him. It feels threatening. In the second iteration he just dismisses it, it isn't important, he only notices it in passing, then turns his attention to more important things.

So, in my opinion, the writing is passive -- but that may be the flavour that the author is striving for. So, did he make a poor choice? Depends.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

D.A. Boulter said:


> In the second iteration he just dismisses it, it isn't important, he only notices it in passing, then turns his attention to more important things.


That's what the author was saying. Jack Reacher was watching for someone to pick up ransom money. 
I think it's part of the author's style.


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## D.A. Boulter (Jun 11, 2010)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> That's what the author was saying. Jack Reacher was watching for someone to pick up ransom money.
> I think it's part of the author's style.


Without context, we can't know what the author is trying to get across. Which is why I said that his choice of words and wording can't be judged a good or poor choice.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> I think I've now caught a case of 'was' police.
> 
> I'm reading Lee Child's _The Hard Way_ and in chapter 7 there is an average of one 'was' per paragraph.
> 
> ...


Nope. This is what I would call a first draft or something from _The Sound and the Fury_. It's actively passive with WAS and passively active with slop. Of course, the author might, in context, wanted to demonstrate flat writing to the world at lodge. 

Edward C. Patterson


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> Nope. This is what I would call a first draft or something from _The Sound and the Fury_. It's actively passive with WAS and passively active with slop. Of course, the author might, in context, wanted to demonstrate flat writing to the world at lodge.
> 
> Edward C. Patterson


This is his 10th Jack Reacher novel and was made into a film. It has over 500 reviews, so I don't think he or his editor will be changing his style 

I've read another of his books and I didn't notice anything wrong while reading it, but now I'm stuck watching out for every 'was'


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## ElisaBlaisdell (Jun 3, 2012)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> This is his 10th Jack Reacher novel and was made into a film. It has over 500 reviews, so I don't think he or his editor will be changing his style
> 
> I've read another of his books and I didn't notice anything wrong while reading it, but now I'm stuck watching out for every 'was'


Is there any chance that the concern over linking verbs is like the concern about using 'say'? There's still writers out there who think that 'say' is bland, and that their characters need to yelp, whimper, ejaculate, or smile everything that they utter. They usually learned it from writing lessons.

I'd think that the verb 'to be' was as 'invisible' as the verb 'say'.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

Fame and engaging readers do not equqtr


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> I think I've now caught a case of 'was' police.
> 
> I'm reading Lee Child's _The Hard Way_ and in chapter 7 there is an average of one 'was' per paragraph.
> 
> ...


WAS in and of itself is NOT passive. *bangs head on desk*

ETA: There are times when a passage should be "inactive" because the character is waiting or being inactive. (I do not use the word passive because that means something else--a verb voice). Then it is quite appropriate to write it so.


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## Carol M (Dec 31, 2012)

The paragraph is fine as it is. There's no reason to delete _was_ in three places.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

The WAS has less to do with Passive and more to do with flat writing., which to a reader is flat lining. It's better to write in Chinese, where there is no word for IS, except the stative pjantom concept shr, which is used or not as the case may be. In Chinese IS is purely existential. The western To Be concept is swallowed up into a creative world of stative-verbs. One might wonder why Pearl S. Buck manages to write creatively and engagingly, yet somehow seems to work within a simplistic structure. (If you hadn;t wondered - it's a BINGO moment). Buck wrote all 53 of her novels in Chinese first (event the western romances), and then transleted them into English. Now what this has to do with the topic might be questionable, but it was far more interesting than a purely Western discussion of the idiosyncracity of the passive and why the Egyptians never used the wheel on their chariots.

Edward C. Patterson


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## Sam Edge (Sep 11, 2013)

Instead of 

"he was kept busy salting" 

or 

"he was salting"

why not 

"he salted"

Omit needless words. The Elements of Style.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Those  who know how to use these words and constructions have a competitive advantage over those who don't.


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## Carradee (Aug 21, 2010)

Sam Edge said:


> Instead of
> 
> "he was kept busy salting"
> 
> ...


Those three don't all mean the same thing.

1. "he was kept busy salting" = someone or something was acting to make sure he stayed busy
2. "he was salting" = he was in the process of salting
3. "he salted" = he both started and finished salting

Now, in English, #3 can be used to mean #2, but it still depends on the context.

Also, the _Elements of Style_ is not an appropriate reference here. First, it's *prescriptive*, which makes it innately problematic when applied to fiction. Second, it is not a grammar handbook-it is a book of _guidelines_ that can help your writing (which is what you get if you read the original; I've not read the most recent editions).

The "omit needless words" thing works if those words are actually not needed, but that does not mean fewer words are necessarily better. Sometimes a wordier, more verbose way to say something is best for meaning, emphasis, or overall tone.


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## D.A. Boulter (Jun 11, 2010)

Carradee said:


> Those three don't all mean the same thing.
> 
> 1. "he was kept busy salting" = someone or something was acting to make sure he stayed busy
> 2. "he was salting" = he was in the process of salting
> ...


"Salting kept him busy."


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

He was assaulted.


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## Carradee (Aug 21, 2010)

D.A. Boulter said:


> "Salting kept him busy."


That's actually equivalent to "He kept busy salting," not "He *was* kept busy salting." The former indicates that he's the one causing himself to keep busy; the latter indicates that he is not the one causing himself to keep busy. Which is the definition of passive voice.



Edward C. Patterson said:


> He was assaulted.


That is an example of passive voice, but I'm not following your point. Mind elaborating, or was that intended as a reference to your English/Chinese distinction above?


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## Daizie (Mar 27, 2013)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> He was assaulted.


haha


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

ElisaBlaisdell said:


> Is there any chance that the concern over [was] is like the concern about using '[said]'? There's still writers out there who think that '[said]' is bland, and that their characters need to yelp, whimper, ejaculate, or smile everything that they utter. They usually learned it from writing lessons.
> 
> I'd think '[was]' [is] as 'invisible' as '[said]'.


Yes. I think this is exactly what is going on. "Teachers" of writing make up "rules" like this to create helplessness in their students, in my opinion. That makes their students keep coming back to these "teachers" for more lessons.

It's all BS.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

What do the Boy Scouts have to with it?


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## ElisaBlaisdell (Jun 3, 2012)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> What do the Boy Scouts have to with it?


Absolutely nothing.

Alternatively, you need to 'be prepared' to field off-the-wall questions, any time you post.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

Being off the wall is my speciality.


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## D.A. Boulter (Jun 11, 2010)

D.A. Boulter said:


> "Salting kept him busy."





 Carradee said:


> That's actually equivalent to "He kept busy salting," not "He *was* kept busy salting." The former indicates that he's the one causing himself to keep busy; the latter indicates that he is not the one causing himself to keep busy. Which is the definition of passive voice.


No, it's not equivalent at all.

'Salting kept him busy' infers that something is forcing him to keep busy -- the act of salting -- while
'He kept busy salting' infers that he is doing something in order to keep busy. And it IS the equivalent of the passive: 'He was kept busy salting.'

Compare:

'My boss kept me busy,' and 'I was kept busy by my boss.' active/passive -- equivalent
'Salting kept him busy,' and 'He was kept busy [by] salting.' active/passive -- equivalent


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

I think poor Fred has run out of salt


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## Carradee (Aug 21, 2010)

D.A. Boulter said:


> No, it's not equivalent at all.
> 
> 'Salting kept him busy' infers that something is forcing him to keep busy -- the act of salting -- while
> 'He kept busy salting' infers that he is doing something in order to keep busy. And it IS the equivalent of the passive: 'He was kept busy salting.'
> ...


"Salting kept him busy" is inferring he's keeping *himself* busy, because salting itself is something you *use* to keep busy; it has no will of its own. And "He kept busy salting" = "He kept *himself* busy [doing what?] salting." "Salting" is the action, not the actor responsible for the action.

Notice that if you replace "salting" with "performing this action", it's still "Performing this action kept him busy" or "He kept busy performing this action."

If you were comparing something with a will-like "His boss kept him busy salting", _that_ would be equivalent to "He was kept busy salting by his boss." Notice that salting is in the same place in both sentences.

Otherwise, you're anthropomorphizing salting. Now, you might be intending the figurative use, which would explain our disconnect.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

Mr. Pretzel kept him salting when the snows began to fall.

Example of anthropomorphising. Of course, it's also an example of passive ambiguity, and the snows are also morphed by the word _fall _ and the man's name was really Mr. Pretzel, which adds a twist. In the words of William Schwenk Gilbert - "a bit of verisimilitude added to an otherwise bald and corroborative narrative."

Miss Chatty
The Queen of the run-on Thread


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## Bluebonnet (Dec 15, 2013)

Drew Gideon said:


> Forgive me for resurrecting a thread; I'm having a problem with this. At least, I think I am.
> 
> I keep catching myself writing in a passive voice. It might not be technically correct, but it *feels* passive.
> 
> ...


In my opinion, you should just write whatever you want and worry about polishing it later. If I try to police myself with every sentence, it kills my productivity -- breaks up my flow and derails my train of thought.


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## Just Browsing (Sep 26, 2012)

Drew Gideon said:


> Forgive me for resurrecting a thread; I'm having a problem with this. At least, I think I am.
> 
> I keep catching myself writing in a passive voice. It might not be technically correct, but it *feels* passive.
> 
> ...


Your first sentence--which sounds perfectly fine to me--is not passive. You have a reduced participial adverbial phrase. They are allowed. They are not bad. (Not that the passive is bad either, but I don't even try anymore on that topic.) Your change to me sounds worse. Like the arm has a mind of its own, and its owner can't control it. Not sure why you would be unhappy with the first?

Remember that the passive ("Stonehenge was built in the Bronze Age") has NOTHING TO DO with a person behaving passively ("Tilda let her mother run her life"). Yes, the words are spelled the same. They mean very different things. One is a verb voice. The other is a state of being unresponsive or not initiating. Even that latter isn't "bad," any more than being shy is bad. It's just part of the personality spectrum.

If you feel the sentence does not reflect something your character would do, then change it for that reason.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Drew Gideon said:


> Forgive me for resurrecting a thread; I'm having a problem with this. At least, I think I am.
> 
> I keep catching myself writing in a passive voice. It might not be technically correct, but it *feels* passive.
> 
> ...


I rather doubt that his arm tightened around her by its own volition. I would say that your first permutation is better. He tightened his arm. It didn't do it on its own. I'm not sure why it 'feels passive' to you. Maybe you could explain that.

ETA: It looks like I'm mainly repeating what nightpress just posted, but we agree here.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Drew Gideon said:


> I keep catching myself writing in a passive voice. It might not be technically correct, but it *feels* passive.
> 
> "Shh," he said, tightening his arm around her.
> 
> ...


Both of those are active. The subject is 'doing' the verb.  In the first example, he remains the subject. In the second example, you have changed the subject to his arm.

Passive:

"Shh" was said. Around her, an arm was tightened.

Passive means the verb just happens and we have no idea how. It doesn't have to have the word 'was', though. And not all 'was constructions' are passive. The key to knowing if it is a passive sentence construction: if you know who or what is 'doing' the verb, then it is not passive.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Active in past progressive tense:

"Shh," he was saying, while he was tightening his arm around her waist.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Cherise Kelley said:


> If you know who or what is 'doing' the verb, then it is not passive.


Not always the case. "This portrait was painted by Picasso." is passive voice even though it tells us Picasso painted the portrait.

Passive voice constructions always have a form of 'to be' (is, am, are, was, were, will be, is being, are being, etc.) followed by the third verb (past participle).


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Philip Gibson said:


> Not always the case. "This portrait was painted by Picasso." is passive voice even though it tells us Picasso painted the portrait.
> 
> Passive voice constructions always have a form of 'to be' (is, am, are, was, were, will be, is being, are being, etc.) followed by the third verb (past participle).


I stand corrected, Sir. 

I also want to repeat that passive voice is not evil. If the portrait is the item of interest, then the passive construction above is appropriate.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Countering “Avoid the passive voice!” with “It’s okay to use the passive voice!” is like countering “Don’t take pills!” with “It’s okay to take pills!” The advice is devoid of that all-important content: What kind of pills and why are you taking them? The important information for writers is what the passive voice does and when one should use it. Maybe someone should start a thread on that...


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Anne Victory said:


> I had a friend email me a sample edit today that she'd gotten from another editor. She was a bit confused because the editor had flagged every instance of the word "was" as "passive voice."


Do not hire that editor, Friend of OP. He doesn't know what he's talking about.

Great googly moogly, shouldn't anybody who's hanging out a shingle as an editor understand what passive voice is and is not? It's so simple!


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Best craft thread I've seen in a long time. First page is full of awesome.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

I know a few bestsellers who would have a fit if their MS came back from their editors with red strikes through all their was's to change the sentence structure.  Don't tell Lee Child, Patterson or Connelly the word is passive taboo.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Hugh Howey said:


> Best craft thread I've seen in a long time. First page is full of awesome.


Reading through the thread, it seems there is a common misunderstanding of the word "was" as to how it relates to passive voice sentences.

A sentence with "was" is only passive voice if "was" (or the other forms of the verb "to be") is followed by the 'third verb' (past participle).

"The food was good" is not a passive voice construction because it is followed by an adjective ("good") and not followed by a third verb. BTW, I call past participles "third verbs" because that's how my EFL students learn it, e.g. eat - ate - eaten; "eaten" is the third verb.

Every tense has its own forms of the verb "to be". These include: is, am, are, was, were, will be, has been, have been, is being, are being, etc.)

Some examples:

Present Simple, Active Voice: "We eat the food..."
Present Simple, Passive Voice: "The food is eaten..."

Past Simple, Active Voice: "We ate the food..."
Past Simple, Passive Voice: "The food was eaten..."

Present Continuous, Active Voice: "We are eating the food..."
Present Continuous, Passive Voice: "The food is being eaten..."

Past Continuous, Active Voice: "We were eating the food..."
Past Continuous, Passive Voice: "The food was being eaten..."

Future Simple, Active Voice: "We will eat the food..."
Future Simple, Passive Voice: "The food will be eaten..."

Present Perfect, Active Voice: "We have eaten the food..."
Present Perfect, Passive Voice: "The food has been eaten..."

There are more tenses than these six, but most are not necessary and rarely used. I limit my beginning EFL students to these six, but insist that they learn how to construct the active voice and passive voice forms of each tense.

It's really not as hard as grammarians often make it out to be.


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## David Alastair Hayden (Mar 19, 2011)

1001nightspress said:


> Can I also say--for like maybe the millionth time--that even genuine passive voice constructions are not wrong, evil, or even weak? A passive used where an active would be better is not good. But then, an active used where a passive would be better is also not good.


Yes, thank you!

I'm not surprised the original poster had this experience. In many classrooms throughout the US, passive voice is taught incorrectly. I don't know when this cycle began, but it's been set now: people who don't know it teaching other people how to not know it.

It's not surprising, given the worship of The Strunk & White which cannot correctly define passive voice and provide accurate examples of it.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

David Alastair Hayden said:


> Yes, thank you!
> 
> I'm not surprised the original poster had this experience. In many classrooms throughout the US, passive voice is taught incorrectly. I don't know when this cycle began, but it's been set now: people who don't know it teaching other people how to not know it.
> 
> It's not surprising, given the worship of The Strunk & White which cannot correctly define passive voice and provide accurate examples of it.


Actually, there are three different ideas all getting mashed together by the anti-was crowd. You're right that part of it comes from a misapplication of _Strunk and White_, who wrote a short style guide for undergraduate essays-not for fiction writers. The second idea is the stylistic convention that says the verb _to be _is a weak verb, so you should look for alternatives. The third idea is the anti-verb-_to-be _approach to writing&#8230;everything. Sometimes it's just an exercise or a rule of thumb for writing more clearly; other times is a quasi-ideological approach to writing (this is sometimes called "English-prime," but it has other names).

And, yes, you're right. A lot of people teaching English...shouldn't _be_.


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## David Alastair Hayden (Mar 19, 2011)

WHDean said:


> Actually, there are three different ideas all getting mashed together by the anti-was crowd. You're right that part of it comes from a misapplication of _Strunk and White_, who wrote a short style guide for undergraduate essays-not for fiction writers. The second idea is the stylistic convention that says the verb _to be _is a weak verb, so you should look for alternatives. The third idea is the anti-verb-_to-be _approach to writing&#8230;everything. Sometimes it's just an exercise or a rule of thumb for writing more clearly; other times is a quasi-ideological approach to writing (this is sometimes called "English-prime," but it has other names).
> 
> And, yes, you're right. A lot of people teaching English...shouldn't _be_.


Agreed. I do think at some point the "was verbs are weak" and "passive voice is weak" concepts got muddled together into "was verbs are passive and weak and see, the Strunk and White says this sort of thing is passive and that we should only use active voice." It's all compounded now for some folks.

The best way to write is clearly through functional grammar (which doesn't have to be perfect by the rules) and your unique voice. But people aren't comfortable teaching that, because after functional grammar, the only way to attain the other is through practice.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

A large part of my teaching life has been teaching technical writing to research scientists for whom English is a second language. As part of that, I did an extensive survey into the kinds of writing used in professional technical publications. As well as finding out that 98%+ of such writing employs only the six basic English tenses (mentioned above), I found that 60% of sentences in technical journals are in passive voice compared to only 40% usage of active voice sentences.

I did the survey after I had come up against the advice journal publications uniformly give their potential authors: "Do not use passive voice!"

Well sorry, but they do and what's more - they need to. That's because if one converts all passive passive voice sentences to active voice, one is left with a barrage of egotistical-sounding sentences that start with "I", "I", "I" or "We", 'We", "We"...not good!

It's different for fiction and other kinds of writing of course, but the generic, institutional (and incorrect) advice remains: "Avoid passive voice!"

I think it comes down to another generic piece of advice given to writers in all genres: "Show, don't tell!"  In my view, "showing" can be accomplished by either voice depending on the context.

Maybe it would be worthwhile doing a survey of a well-regarded work of fiction to see the passive voice/active voice balance there. I'm a bit of a nut for such surveys.


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

I have always excelled at writing English papers for school. Imagine my surprise about 10 years ago, in college, when I completely FLUNKED the first paper in a comparative religion class. We all flunked the paper. The instructor circled every form of the "be" verb, and counted off 5 points each time. Then he gave us the chance to rewrite the papers. My writing evolved dramatically after that new paper.


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## John Blackport (Jul 18, 2011)

brie.mcgill said:


> As a strange aside, sometimes I like to lay it on thick with passive voice in choice situations, like when characters are drugged, kidnapped, dead (heh), or made otherwise physically immobile. Then again, I'm also the weirdo that likes to get myself... err, my characters... into these types of situations (I love exploring the mind-body split).


Whenever I wonder whether passive voice is appropriate, I fall back on my TAI CHI. . . basically, I use it when the pov character is:

*T*errified

*A*nguished

*I*mmobile

*C*lueless

*H*elpless . . . or

*I*ntoxicated


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