Passive tense

[grahamsealby]

I am plagued with a bad habit of using 'Passive' tense when writing. I get immediate flags from my proofing software that this is a NO, NO! How does one avoid using Passive tense and is it so bad? I'd like to hear from anyone who can help.

[Valkyrie]

13 minutes ago, grahamsealby said:

I am plagued with a bad habit of using 'Passive' tense when writing. I get immediate flags from my proofing software that this is a NO, NO! How does one avoid using Passive tense and is it so bad? I'd like to hear from anyone who can help.

Active voice is generally preferred over passive voice.  Active voice is clearer than passive, and sounds better.  Passive sentences tend to be wordy and can be vague or unclear. In active voice, the subject performs the action.  In passive voice, the subject receives the action. For example: 

 

Active: The man ate pizza.  

Passive: The pizza was eaten by the man.  

 

So the answer to your question is yes... listen to the software and change the passive sentences to active.  

 

 

[Cia]

For the most part, you want to ensure that you don't use passive tense because people enact change on something and not the other way around... most of the time.  I've found this creeps in more often in third person point of view past tense, as first person just lends itself to a more immediate way of writing with a lot of "I" statements. One key clue to know when to edit sentences is to find ones with the word 'was' before the verb. 

 

Some great articles on passive/active voice:

 http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/GRAMMAR/passive.htm

 

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/539/01/

 

https://writingexplained.org/grammar-dictionary/passive-voice

[mastershakeme]

23 hours ago, grahamsealby said:

I am plagued with a bad habit of using 'Passive' tense when writing. I get immediate flags from my proofing software that this is a NO, NO! How does one avoid using Passive tense and is it so bad? I'd like to hear from anyone who can help.

 

What proofing software do you use that flags passive voice? Because I need it! 

 

I used Microsoft Word to write for years and never knew I was doing anything wrong using passive voice... I didn't even know what it was until I got my first beta just over a year ago. She drilled me relentlessly on active voice and I thank her, because I know the difference now and even though I still use passive voice at times, I'm quick to fix my own mistakes 😀

22 hours ago, Valkyrie said:

 

Active: The man ate pizza.  

Passive: The pizza was eaten by the man.  

 

 

This is a great example of how to fix the active/passive sentence structure. It's probably impossible to fix our habit instantly and completely, so just get in the habit of checking (using your amazing editing software 😛) for errors like the one above and give it the same simple fix! 

 

It's ok if you continue to find yourself using passive voice, none of us are perfect! Just make an active voice edit part of your regular editing process. 

[grahamsealby]

23 hours ago, Valkyrie said:

Active voice is generally preferred over passive voice.  Active voice is clearer than passive, and sounds better.  Passive sentences tend to be wordy and can be vague or unclear. In active voice, the subject performs the action.  In passive voice, the subject receives the action. For example: 

 

Active: The man ate pizza.  

Passive: The pizza was eaten by the man.  

 

So the answer to your question is yes... listen to the software and change the passive sentences to active.  

 

 

I use MS Word 10 proofing facility. This is what drives me crazy because I automatically use passive without thinking. I guess the rule is check for 'who' and 'what'.  In your example  'the man' is the 'who' and the pizza is the 'what'. You can't say 'The pizza ate the man' because it's nonsense. I guess you must always look for the 'who' and construct from there. Thanx again

 

23 hours ago, Valkyrie said:

Active voice is generally preferred over passive voice.  Active voice is clearer than passive, and sounds better.  Passive sentences tend to be wordy and can be vague or unclear. In active voice, the subject performs the action.  In passive voice, the subject receives the action. For example: 

 

Active: The man ate pizza.  

Passive: The pizza was eaten by the man.  

 

So the answer to your question is yes... listen to the software and change the passive sentences to active.  

 

 

 

[grahamsealby]

23 hours ago, Cia said:

For the most part, you want to ensure that you don't use passive tense because people enact change on something and not the other way around... most of the time.  I've found this creeps in more often in third person point of view past tense, as first person just lends itself to a more immediate way of writing with a lot of "I" statements. One key clue to know when to edit sentences is to find ones with the word 'was' before the verb. 

 

Some great articles on passive/active voice:

 http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/GRAMMAR/passive.htm

 

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/539/01/

 

https://writingexplained.org/grammar-dictionary/passive-voice

1

Thnx for responding. It's starting to become clearer. In the sentence  'The hill was climbed by the girl' the 'WHO is the girl and the 'WHAT' is the hill.  You can't say 'The hill climbed the girl' because it doesn't make sense. Of course, 'The girl climbed the hill' does. Thnx for the links; the more I write, the more I learn

[Myr]

I use both Word's Grammar tool (Office 365) and Grammarly.  https://www.grammarly.com/

 

Passive voice is not always bad.  If you get good with your pacing you can use passive voice to slow a scene down a little bit and use active voice to be faster flow.  That's a technique skilled writers will use to subtly alter your perceptions. 

 

I think active and passive voice is like the argument between show and tell.   There are times and places for both, but it is easy to overdose and do it wrong.  And if you must overdose, it is better to be active and showing instead of passive and telling. lol.

 

[grahamsealby]

On 6/8/2018 at 9:20 AM, Myr said:

I use both Word's Grammar tool (Office 365) and Grammarly.  https://www.grammarly.com/

 

Passive voice is not always bad.  If you get good with your pacing you can use passive voice to slow a scene down a little bit and use active voice to be faster flow.  That's a technique skilled writers will use to subtly alter your perceptions. 

 

I think active and passive voice is like the argument between show and tell.   There are times and places for both, but it is easy to overdose and do it wrong.  And if you must overdose, it is better to be active and showing instead of passive and telling. lol.

 

I'm not a fan of Grammarly because when you hit the 'ignore' option it is not permanent. Every subsequent time you exercise proofing the same issues keep arising. I've question Grammarly on this and they say their tech guys are looking into the problem. 

When I last applied the 'Readability Stats.' to my current document it showed a passive percentile of 2%. Now I don't know whether this is good or bad because there's explanation of the stat.  Being low doesn't always mean it's good.

[MrM]

I try to be mindful of this during editing. Most the time I want to keep an active voice in a narrative, but if the narrative is done by a specific character that has a passive personality I actually try to force passive voice to keep in character.

[grahamsealby]

That's interesting. I must admit I never considered using 'passive' in that way. Thnx for the tip

[AusGlitterati]

Oh I'm a shocker for that. Grammarly and I always have to have a BIG talk together when we go through it. I still tend to leave some of it in because it feels, I dunno, awkward to me in some instances to switch to active, particularly when I want to focus on the thing, not the person 
#justamateurthings