Passive voice

[SandraMustard]

We rely on Word's grammar and spelling checks (among other methods) to help clean up my writing. One of the things we struggle with is passive voice constructs. We rewrite sentences to remove most of them.

We used an editor once who had zero tolerance for passive voice but we thought his stance was overbearing. Removing a passive voice construct usually improves the flow and clarity of the sentence but there are times when rewriting puts undesired emphasis on the subject when the object is the key to the sentence idea.

We found these helpful suggestions in a grammar guide (http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/passive.htm):

The passive voice does exist for a reason, however, and its presence is not always to be despised. The passive is particularly useful (even recommended) in two situations:

• When it is more important to draw our attention to the person or thing acted upon: The unidentified victim was apparently struck during the early morning hours.
  
• When the actor in the situation is not important: The aurora borealis can be observed in the early morning hours.

We use the passive voice to good effect in a paragraph in which we wish to shift emphasis from what was the object in a first sentence to what becomes the subject in subsequent sentences.

The executive committee approved an entirely new policy for dealing with academic suspension and withdrawal. The policy had been written by a subcommittee on student behavior. If students withdraw from course work before suspension can take effect, the policy states, a mark of "IW" . . .​

I wonder how much of a passive-voice Nazi other writers are.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Passive voice is made to order for passive speakers and to devalue particular points.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Use of the passive voice is to be avoided in expository prose.

 

[oggbashan]

Word keeps telling me it is to be avoided.

Sometimes I rewrite. Most times it is left as I originally wrote it.

Word's grammar recommendations aren't designed for fiction.

 

[49greg]

I always had a bad time in English classes in school. I read a lot from an early age, and learned to write from the fiction I read. (Back in the day when publishers employed editors who knew how to write the language.)

In school I had trouble with identifying subject, object and the different tenses and voices - all the mechanical stuff. I just knew what sounded right and what didn't, but couldn't tell the teachers why.

So I recognize what the OP is saying, but can't say if I've every used the passive voice or not, probably not if it isn't used much.

On the bright side I'm married to an English Major and some of her knowledge has been rubbing off.

I still make mistakes. Oh yes indeed. And I don't like word and quit using it.

 

[rjordan]

We used an editor once who had zero tolerance for passive voice but we thought his stance was overbearing. Removing a passive voice construct usually improves the flow and clarity of the sentence but there are times when rewriting puts undesired emphasis on the subject when the object is the key to the sentence idea.

We found these helpful suggestions in a grammar guide (http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/passive.htm):

I wonder how much of a passive-voice Nazi other writers are.

Every one of those examples in your quote sound like Ben Stiller in Ferris Buehler or Ben Stiller in anything. They are dull and muddy fit for droning documentaries on nematodes not for sex stories.

If the subject is unimportant, how about leaving it out of the story? That will de-emphasize it.

rj

 

[Weird Harold]

Use of the passive voice is to be avoided in expository prose.

The best explanation I've found for avoiding Passive Voice is:

Overuse of Passive Voice can make your prose seem flat and uninteresting.
-- Purdue University Online Writing Lab. (older version, ca 1990)

The question then becomes, "what constitutes overuse?"

For my writing, that answer seem to be that the "flat and uninteresting" shows up when MSWord reports about 5% Passive Voice. I know that sounds like a very low number until you consider that only about 10-12% of sentences have any "Voice" at all -- i.e. neither active nor passive voice. Five percent is actually about half of every opportunity to make a choice.

An associated problem is that when I get started with passive voice, I tend to phrase everything passively whether "voice" is relevant or not, so the "passive voice problem" can extend to the whole tone of the piece (or section.)

That said, passive voice does have a place, and the "flat and uninteresting" effect can be used intentionally to cause the reader to skip over information you want to "hide" or minimize.

 

[sr71plt]

Never say never about anything in grammar (especially when characters speaking is involved). Both the passive voice and adverbs exist because there are legitimate uses for them. As far as overuse, the overuse of anything should be avoided--that's why it's called overuse.

There's nothing more dangerous in writing than a writer who knows just enough about writing to be absolutist about anything based on some guidance an established writer wrote to make money off name recognition.

I suggest just turning grammar check off. It was developed for nonfiction technical writing and you'll do better with your own voice in fiction than Bill Gates'.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

The best explanation I've found for avoiding Passive Voice is:



The question then becomes, "what constitutes overuse?"

For my writing, that answer seem to be that the "flat and uninteresting" shows up when MSWord reports about 5% Passive Voice. I know that sounds like a very low number until you consider that only about 10-12% of sentences have any "Voice" at all -- i.e. neither active nor passive voice. Five percent is actually about half of every opportunity to make a choice.

An associated problem is that when I get started with passive voice, I tend to phrase everything passively whether "voice" is relevant or not, so the "passive voice problem" can extend to the whole tone of the piece (or section.)

That said, passive voice does have a place, and the "flat and uninteresting" effect can be used intentionally to cause the reader to skip over information you want to "hide" or minimize.

My 'dictum,' and I presume Purdue's as well, was meant as a joke: using the passive voice to tell people not to use the passive voice.

The passive voice is used frequently in expository prose, particularly in Science and Social Science writing where, in referring to other studies, we need to de-emphasize the researchers and emphasize the findings. You'll find a lot of "It [sub in the specific finding] was found ..." It is what makes much of science writing, at least in professional journals, rather flat and dry. That's why there are prizes for interesting science prose (which is generally for the more general public; we professionals have to pay the price for trying to appear objectively disassociative).

 

[PennLady]

I suggest just turning grammar check off. It was developed for nonfiction technical writing and you'll do better with your own voice in fiction than Bill Gates'.

Definitely. I turned it off because I didn't want to see all the green lines for the stuff I had that was grammatically incorrect by Word standards. A lot of default stuff I can ignore, but not that.

Also I think it makes a small mental difference not to see a constant reminder of "errors."

 

[SandraMustard]

Never say never about anything in grammar (especially when characters speaking is involved). Both the passive voice and adverbs exist because there are legitimate uses for them. As far as overuse, the overuse of anything should be avoided--that's why it's called overuse.

There's nothing more dangerous in writing than a writer who knows just enough about writing to be absolutist about anything based on some guidance an established writer wrote to make money off name recognition.

I suggest just turning grammar check off. It was developed for nonfiction technical writing and you'll do better with your own voice in fiction than Bill Gates'.

You've given the most moderate advice ... then suggest turning off grammar checker. That seems absolutist. I purposely make dialogue sound realistic and it produces the most green lines. I ignore almost all errors in dialogue. I don't want my characters talking like Sir John Gielgud.

Definitely. I turned it off because I didn't want to see all the green lines for the stuff I had that was grammatically incorrect by Word standards. A lot of default stuff I can ignore, but not that.

Also I think it makes a small mental difference not to see a constant reminder of "errors."

If not for the green lines, I wouldn't know where to look for problems. I don't care how many I "ignore" because I'm not worried about adhering to a computer's search logic definition. Even ignoring passive voice more than any other error, I usually end up with under 2%; my novel is so low, it says zero (probably under .5).

I've received numerous feedbacks/comments that compliment my stories for being well edited. For someone who nearly failed high school English, with Word and my hubby's help, I must be doing something well.

 

[sr71plt]

You've given the most moderate advice ... then suggest turning off grammar checker. That seems absolutist. I purposely make dialogue sound realistic and it produces the most green lines. I ignore almost all errors in dialogue. I don't want my characters talking like Sir John Gielgud.

I advocate learning basic grammar yourself and having recognized authorities on grammar and spelling at hand--and using them.

Computer grammar check is NOT for fiction. It's for channeling you to a single business letter nonfiction voice. That's the antithesis of writing fiction. A grammar check couldn't handle the loose form of fiction in the English language no matter how it tried.

 

[SandraMustard]

Maybe I sound like I'm fishing for kudos here with my OP then last post. I'm not. We just finished an editing session and I thought about the editor who complained that I used so much passive voice, it turned him off on my story. I recall that Word said my passive voice that time was 1%. I felt like running the concept past others as a comparison.

 

[SandraMustard]

I advocate learning basic grammar yourself and having recognized authorities on grammar and spelling at hand--and using them.

Computer grammar check is NOT for fiction. It's for channeling you to a single business letter nonfiction voice. That's the antithesis of writing fiction. A grammar check couldn't handle the loose form of fiction in the English language no matter how it tried.

I understand all your points and believe Word is poor for grammar checking but I don't see how I can get along without it if I have nothing else to flag possibilities.

"having recognized authorities on grammar and spelling at hand--and using them" - Please explain what they are and how to use them.

 

[sr71plt]

I understand all your points and believe Word is poor for grammar checking but I don't see how I can get along without it if I have nothing else to flag possibilities.

"having recognized authorities on grammar and spelling at hand--and using them" - Please explain what they are and how to use them.

A dictionary, certainly. Websters' Collegiate for U.S. style (although consulting the American Heritage Dictionary is good too, as the AH is prescriptive and the W is descriptive). Oxford for British style. (Guess Canadians and Aussies have to run between the two).

If you really want to be serious, the Chicago Manual of Style (although it only put in a grammar section in the last edition, and I don't use it much). I also have the APA, AP, New York Times, the MLA Handbook, and GPO style manuals for comparison.

Don't know what else you'd find helpful, but right at hand on a bookshelf to my left are:

On Writing Well, William Zinsser
The Careful Writer, Theodore Bernstein
The American Heritage Book of English Usage
Modern English Usage, H. W. Fowler (not the the latest edition, as Fowler died and an pretentious ass replaced him)
Dictionary of Problem Words and Expressions, Harry Shaw
Editing Fact and Fiction, Sharpe and Gunther
The Transitive Vampire, Karen Elizabeth Gordon
HarperCollins College Outline: English Grammar, David and Barbara Daniels
Schaum's Theory and Problems: Punctuation, Capitalization, and Spelling, Eugene Ehrlich.

Somewhere in all of that I usually find what I'm looking for. The American Heritage Book of English Usage, and the workbooks by the Danielses and Ehrlich provide the quickest, clearest help for me.

The various books put out by established authors are fun and have nuggets of gold, but you have to wade through a lot of chit chat to get to anything that might help you with a present issue.

I think it would take a course to tell anyone how best to use them. (The Internet can be useful too, but sorting out who knows what they are talking about and who doesn't there can be a real bear).

I have an essay of my own here, though, that tells some on how to use Webster's (there's a guide in front of Webster's but almost no one bothers to read it.) https://www.literotica.com/s/dictionary-smarts-can-up-ratings

 

[SandraMustard]

As I suspected, you have a library of references to find "what I'm looking for." We've used a few from your list (some through your answers) and prudent internet searches to find out how to write certain things.

Maybe we're poor editors in that we need help flagging the possible errors as I write new material. Without a tool, we might read what we thought we typed or not recognize a mistake. The tireless scan by the computer is at least a helpful as a starting point. Do you and PL not using any flagging tool? Whatever your answers(s), we choose to run the checker and go from there, but we're not blinded by its rantings.

 

[Handley_Page]

Word keeps telling me it is to be avoided.

Sometimes I rewrite. Most times it is left as I originally wrote it.

Word's grammar recommendations aren't designed for fiction.

Word 97 does not have this drawback; it permits different styles of writing (Legal, Business, Casual, etc.).

Personally, I like a little dose of passive voice. It can tell a tale like a report and, given the right theme and nature, can hammer into the eye of the reader. Obviously, it's not likely to win many friends if the whole saga is like this, but it has a place in the author's toolbox, I reckon.

 

[sr71plt]

As I suspected, you have a library of references to find "what I'm looking for." We've used a few from your list (some through your answers) and prudent internet searches to find out how to write certain things.

Maybe we're poor editors in that we need help flagging the possible errors as I write new material. Without a tool, we might read what we thought we typed or not recognize a mistake. The tireless scan by the computer is at least a helpful as a starting point. Do you and PL not using any flagging tool? Whatever your answers(s), we choose to run the checker and go from there, but we're not blinded by its rantings.

I run spellcheck several times because it will highlight possible mistakes even when it's wrong because it can't hand the level of variation needed. No, I don't use any grammar check at all. I use a human editor and, like spellcheck, mainly to highlight mistakes I made and just read through on review. My human editor doesn't have formal editing training, and I do. I just can be very stupid in what I've written and thought looked OK until someone else pointed to it and questioned it.

And I'll use sentence fragments frequently, because that's my writing voice, and that's doable in commercial fiction.

 

[SandraMustard]

I write with spell check and grammar check on. I have a human editor too, and he edits with them both on. I've been known to fellate my editor while he's working on my story. In the end, a story is written in 'my' style with some passive voice (like this sentence.)

 

[sr71plt]

I write with spell check and grammar check on. I have a human editor too, and he edits with them both on. I've been known to fellate my editor while he's working on my story. In the end, a story is written in 'my' style with some passive voice (like this sentence.)

Well, your hair is going to go frizzy and your teeth are going to fall out if you do that. No, seriously, that's fine if that's how you want to do it.

 

[Weird Harold]

Definitely. I turned it off because I didn't want to see all the green lines for the stuff I had that was grammatically incorrect by Word standards. A lot of default stuff I can ignore, but not that.

Also I think it makes a small mental difference not to see a constant reminder of "errors."

I've also found that the constant rechecking gets very slow and distracting when "check as you type" is turned on. I still use Word's spelling and grammar check as part of the reviewing/editing process.

I'm the final arbiter of which changes get made, but it helps me to know where punctuation and spelling typos confuse the grammar check. The Fault the grammar check reports is often NOT the problem, but figuring out why the grammar check faulted is often useful in correcting a problem it couldn't detect (like missing words or punctuation.)

 

[PennLady]

I've also found that the constant rechecking gets very slow and distracting when "check as you type" is turned on. I still use Word's spelling and grammar check as part of the reviewing/editing process.

I'm the final arbiter of which changes get made, but it helps me to know where punctuation and spelling typos confuse the grammar check. The Fault the grammar check reports is often NOT the problem, but figuring out why the grammar check faulted is often useful in correcting a problem it couldn't detect (like missing words or punctuation.)

Yes, I will usually run a spelling/grammar check after I'm done because it's not as good as another set of eyes, but it's close. Never hurts to look something over.

 

[someoneyouknow]

A dictionary, certainly. Websters' Collegiate for U.S. style (although consulting the American Heritage Dictionary is good too, as the AH is prescriptive and the W is descriptive). Oxford for British style. (Guess Canadians and Aussies have to run between the two).

If you really want to be serious, the Chicago Manual of Style (although it only put in a grammar section in the last edition, and I don't use it much). I also have the APA, AP, New York Times, the MLA Handbook, and GPO style manuals for comparison.

Don't know what else you'd find helpful, but right at hand on a bookshelf to my left are:

On Writing Well, William Zinsser
The Careful Writer, Theodore Bernstein
The American Heritage Book of English Usage
Modern English Usage, H. W. Fowler (not the the latest edition, as Fowler died and an pretentious ass replaced him)
Dictionary of Problem Words and Expressions, Harry Shaw
Editing Fact and Fiction, Sharpe and Gunther
The Transitive Vampire, Karen Elizabeth Gordon
HarperCollins College Outline: English Grammar, David and Barbara Daniels
Schaum's Theory and Problems: Punctuation, Capitalization, and Spelling, Eugene Ehrlich.

Somewhere in all of that I usually find what I'm looking for. The American Heritage Book of English Usage, and the workbooks by the Danielses and Ehrlich provide the quickest, clearest help for me.

The various books put out by established authors are fun and have nuggets of gold, but you have to wade through a lot of chit chat to get to anything that might help you with a present issue.

I think it would take a course to tell anyone how best to use them. (The Internet can be useful too, but sorting out who knows what they are talking about and who doesn't there can be a real bear).

I have an essay of my own here, though, that tells some on how to use Webster's (there's a guide in front of Webster's but almost no one bothers to read it.) https://www.literotica.com/s/dictionary-smarts-can-up-ratings

What, no The Elements of Style by Strunk and White?

 

[sr71plt]

What, no The Elements of Style by Strunk and White?

No. I have that on a shelf nearby but I only look at it when someone cites it. This is rather a foundation issue in developing up to write adult fiction. Strunk and White is written for high school term papers. It has basic information, useful for high school writing. It isn't comprehensive or even entirely correct--it's too limiting--for writing adult fiction.

I always grit my teeth when someone here cites that as their writing authority. Close, but no banana. They are at least trying, but they aren't writing in the right league.

It seems to be a common misconception that writing is writing is writing and grammar is grammar is grammar. There are different types and levels of writing (and of grammar).

You don't come out of high school or basic college English courses prepared to write commercial fiction. (You do if you take creative writing classes in college.)

For the same reason, I have Katie Turabian's A Manual for Writers off to the side, because, as its subtitle states, it's for "Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations," and when I was given one of these to edit, it became an authority for that form. Not for commercial fiction, which is what the stories posted to Literotica are.

I'd say that about 80 percent of the readers who attack the grammar of stories here are operating from the wrong (more elementary) grammar mind-set. Just today (and as posted elsewhere), I had a reader of one of my stories tee off on the sloppiness of the Web site for letting me refer to a male as blond rather than blonde. Well, this commenter apparently doesn't read a dictionary, because Webster's clearly makes the distinction between blond (male) and blonde (female). Many writers don't, and that's OK, but the distinction is still the most proper rendering and a writer here isn't sloppy for using the most proper rendering of anything.