Active vs. Passive - writerly thread

[Vermilion]

Someone is kindly reading through my current epic masterpiece (well, that's what it is in my head) and has commented a couple of times on my use of the passive vs. active.

Unfortunately I have very little idea what this means, either in terms of the narrative, or how to actually change it.

To take an example: "Her toes tingled with the returning blood flow"

If I changed that to: "The returning blood flow made her toes tingle" Would that be considered an 'active' phrase... and if so, then what difference does it make to the narrative?

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[CharleyH]

Someone is kindly reading through my current epic masterpiece (well, that's what it is in my head) and has commented a couple of times on my use of the passive vs. active.

Unfortunately I have very little idea what this means, either in terms of the narrative, or how to actually change it.

To take an example: "Her toes tingled with the returning blood flow"

If I changed that to: "The returning blood flow made her toes tingle" Would that be considered an 'active' phrase... and if so, then what difference does it make to the narrative?

x
V

Passive.

 

[Guest]

oh, this is about grammar

 

[Vermilion]

Passive.

Rats. You've been absent so much I didn't think you'd catch me

<sneaks back out>

 

[sr71plt]

Someone is kindly reading through my current epic masterpiece (well, that's what it is in my head) and has commented a couple of times on my use of the passive vs. active.

Unfortunately I have very little idea what this means, either in terms of the narrative, or how to actually change it.

To take an example: "Her toes tingled with the returning blood flow"

If I changed that to: "The returning blood flow made her toes tingle" Would that be considered an 'active' phrase... and if so, then what difference does it make to the narrative?

x
V

You changed active voice to passive (changing the subject "toes" from the doer to the receiver).

Neither is wrong. Passive has its uses and often can be more compelling in context. But frequent use of passive usually makes the work tedious for the reader.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Someone is kindly reading through my current epic masterpiece (well, that's what it is in my head) and has commented a couple of times on my use of the passive vs. active.

Unfortunately I have very little idea what this means, either in terms of the narrative, or how to actually change it.

To take an example: "Her toes tingled with the returning blood flow"

If I changed that to: "The returning blood flow made her toes tingle" Would that be considered an 'active' phrase... and if so, then what difference does it make to the narrative?

x
V

In this particular sentence, I'd ask you if you couldn't find another way of saying it altogether? It's a little bit clinical...

Do you have other examples?

A story reads passively, if the overall construction is passive. In erotica I feel a sense of detachment from the subject and action... and of course I want to be right in there!

It can be used to good effect, when your character is in a whirl of sensation, though. Or bottoming.

 

[sr71plt]

In this particular sentence, I'd ask you if you couldn't find another way of saying it altogether? It's a little bit clinical...

Do you have other examples?

A story reads passively, if the overall construction is passive. In erotica I feel a sense of detachment from the subject and action... and of course I want to be right in there!

It can be used to good effect, when your character is in a whirl of sensation, though. Or bottoming.

I don't really think you can get that analytical about a single isolated sentence. I think more context is needed to start agonizing over whether this one sentence is the best it can be in the story--or whether it's best as an active voice or a passive voice sentence.

I think it's easy to beat the innards of a story to death so hard in "what's best" rules for every specific sentence that all of the life is sucked out of it.

But that's just me.

 

[Vermilion]

In this particular sentence, I'd ask you if you couldn't find another way of saying it altogether? It's a little bit clinical...

Do you have other examples?

A story reads passively, if the overall construction is passive. In erotica I feel a sense of detachment from the subject and action... and of course I want to be right in there!

It can be used to good effect, when your character is in a whirl of sensation, though. Or bottoming.

OK. Here's the whole paragraph.

For the first time all day she had stopped thinking about her problems and it was a blessed relief. Her toes tingled with the returning blood flow and her feet started to warm up: the irony of cold feet was not lost on her, but she was getting into character for her performance and managed to dismiss the thought as quickly as it occurred.

If you want to know whether the whole story is passive, well, you'd have to read it and that might take a while, since I've just hit page 52 in MS Word! I personally don't think the story is passive, but as the author (and of a work in progress at that) I am definitely too involved to be objective right now...

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[sr71plt]

OK. Here's the whole paragraph.

For the first time all day she had stopped thinking about her problems and it was a blessed relief. Her toes tingled with the returning blood flow and her feet started to warm up: the irony of cold feet was not lost on her, but she was getting into character for her performance and managed to dismiss the thought as quickly as it occurred.

If you want to know whether the whole story is passive, well, you'd have to read it and that might take a while, since I've just hit page 52 in MS Word! I personally don't think the story is passive, but as the author (and of a work in progress at that) I am definitely too involved to be objective right now...

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Reads fine the way as it is, I think. Don't see anything to be gained by switching from active to passive here and back again.

 

[Vermilion]

Reads fine the way as it is, I think. Don't see anything to be gained by switching from active to passive here and back again.

Thanks Blackbird.
I think I need to focus on getting the damn thing finished at the moment!
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[Stella_Omega]

Thanks Blackbird.
I think I need to focus on getting the damn thing finished at the moment!
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Yes! Get thee to thy pen, madam.

Me and my friend here both don't think that paragraph is particularly passive, by the way... (my new character's voice)

 

[Weird Harold]

If you want to know whether the whole story is passive, well, you'd have to read it and that might take a while, since I've just hit page 52 in MS Word! I personally don't think the story is passive, but as the author (and of a work in progress at that) I am definitely too involved to be objective right now...

"... overuse of passive voice throughout an essay can make it flat and uninteresting"

Just how much passive voice constitutes "overuse" is debateable, but I've found that the "flat and uninteresting" starts to show up in my work around 2%-3% Passive Voice Sentences as reported by MS Word Readability statistics -- for an entire document. If I narrow the statistics down to just the sections that are worst affected, Passive Voice can get as high as 5%-10% in those sections without hurting the overall story too much.

However, unless you have a very specific and rational reason for choosing passive voice, the goal should be to eliminate it completely -- IOW, passive voice is OK as long as you aren't using it by accident.

This link will help you understand what passive voice is, how to recognise it, and how to change it to active voice: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/539/01/

 

[Vermilion]

"... overuse of passive voice throughout an essay can make it flat and uninteresting"

Just how much passive voice constitutes "overuse" is debateable, but I've found that the "flat and uninteresting" starts to show up in my work around 2%-3% Passive Voice Sentences as reported by MS Word Readability statistics -- for an entire document. If I narrow the statistics down to just the sections that are worst affected, Passive Voice can get as high as 5%-10% in those sections without hurting the overall story too much.

However, unless you have a very specific and rational reason for choosing passive voice, the goal should be to eliminate it completely -- IOW, passive voice is OK as long as you aren't using it by accident.

This link will help you understand what passive voice is, how to recognise it, and how to change it to active voice: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/539/01/

Thanks for the link WH - I need to go read that.

Right now, though, I need to go sleep... tonight's 1300 words has knocked me out.

xxxxxx to you all. Thanks
V

 

[starrkers]

Whether passive voice is a good or bad thing depends a lot on the subject matter.
I have a story that runs 6% passive, according to Word's readability thingo - but it's about a bloke who finds himself chained in a basement in front of a woman who has her way with him
So a lot of what is described is what is done to him, and therefore in passive voice.
People seem to treat it the same as my other stuff (which is generally around 2-3% passive).

I wouldn't worry about it at this point, V. Get the story written, then worry about the construction if it reads hard.

 

[HappyLlama]

ZZZZZZZ
Too much passive has that effect.

 

[MungoParkIII]

OK. Here's the whole paragraph.

For the first time all day she had stopped thinking about her problems and it was a blessed relief. Her toes tingled with the returning blood flow and her feet started to warm up: the irony of cold feet was not lost on her, but she was getting into character for her performance and managed to dismiss the thought as quickly as it occurred.


V

Almost the entire paragraph is passive except for the sentence you pulled out above.


For the first time all day she had stopped thinking about her problems and it was a blessed relief. Her toes tingled with the returning blood flow and her feet started to warm up: the irony of cold feet was not lost on her, but she was getting into character for her performance and managed to dismiss the thought as quickly as it occurred.

to make it read active you might change it to:


For the first time all day she stopped thinking about her problems and it relieved her. Her toes tingled with the returning blood flow and her feet started to warm up: not losing the irony of cold feet, but she got into character for her performance and managed to dismiss the thought as quickly as it occurred.

My college freshman english teacher, Stephanie Yearwood (I still remember her name from 1974) taught never to use passive voice. I have been in love with her ever since taking her class, but still I find myself using passive voice... forgive me Stephanie.

MP3

 

[McKenna]

Almost the entire paragraph is passive except for the sentence you pulled out above.

He has the right of it, V.


I think there is more room for passive voice in fiction than in non-fiction. (In fact, I KNOW this!) My editor at work is an active-voice Nazi: No, no, no! But then, I write technical documentation, and that's different.

When all else fails, I at least try to be consistent. This is a good rule of thumb to follow for 'bout anything. IOW, don't mix passive and active in the same paragraph for the same character.

Passive does make the reader have to "work harder", and since we want our readers to sit back and enjoy --and not necessarily work to understand-- we use active voice to capture and hold their attention. There are actual psychological studies on how active voice engages the brain vs. passive voice.

Which is probably more than you wanted to know and possibly a regurgitation of what's already been said.

 

[sr71plt]

Almost the entire paragraph is passive except for the sentence you pulled out above.


For the first time all day she had stopped thinking about her problems and it was a blessed relief. Her toes tingled with the returning blood flow and her feet started to warm up: the irony of cold feet was not lost on her, but she was getting into character for her performance and managed to dismiss the thought as quickly as it occurred.

to make it read active you might change it to:


For the first time all day she stopped thinking about her problems and it relieved her. Her toes tingled with the returning blood flow and her feet started to warm up: not losing the irony of cold feet, but she got into character for her performance and managed to dismiss the thought as quickly as it occurred.

My college freshman english teacher, Stephanie Yearwood (I still remember her name from 1974) taught never to use passive voice. I have been in love with her ever since taking her class, but still I find myself using passive voice... forgive me Stephanie.

MP3

This isn't a discussion of active/passive voice; this is a discussion of tense (both examples here are in past perfect tense).

"She had stopped" and "she was getting" are both active voice ("it was relief" arguably is passive). In the two cases, the person/object doing the action is in the subject position, not the object position.

In active voice, the performer of the action is the subject and the person/thing being acted upon is the object--or isn't there at all.

In passive voice, this is reversed. The person/thing acted upon becomes the subject and the performer of the action gets put in a prepositional phrase--or is omitted from the sentence altogether.

Anything else going on in the sentence is a function of something other than active/passive voice.

 

[Oblimo]

Passive does make the reader have to "work harder"

Hehehehe

 

[cantdog]

Almost the entire paragraph is passive except for the sentence you pulled out above.


For the first time all day she had stopped thinking about her problems and it was a blessed relief. Her toes tingled with the returning blood flow and her feet started to warm up: the irony of cold feet was not lost on her, but she was getting into character for her performance and managed to dismiss the thought as quickly as it occurred.

to make it read active you might change it to:


For the first time all day she stopped thinking about her problems and it relieved her. Her toes tingled with the returning blood flow and her feet started to warm up: not losing the irony of cold feet, but she got into character for her performance and managed to dismiss the thought as quickly as it occurred.

My college freshman english teacher, Stephanie Yearwood (I still remember her name from 1974) taught never to use passive voice. I have been in love with her ever since taking her class, but still I find myself using passive voice... forgive me Stephanie.

MP3

God. Check Weird's link. You have no idea what passive voice is.

 

[cantdog]

This isn't a discussion of active/passive voice; this is a discussion of tense (both examples here are in past perfect tense).

"She had stopped" and "she was getting" are both active voice ("it was relief" arguably is passive). In the two cases, the person/object doing the action is in the subject position, not the object position.

In active voice, the performer of the action is the subject and the person/thing being acted upon is the object--or isn't there at all.

In passive voice, this is reversed. The person/thing acted upon becomes the subject and the performer of the action gets put in a prepositional phrase--or is omitted from the sentence altogether.

Anything else going on in the sentence is a function of something other than active/passive voice.

Exactly.

 

[Vermilion]

God. Check Weird's link. You have no idea what passive voice is.

Thank God for that. Even if he was right I would prefer to stick with my original paragraph, passive as it may be, than use his 'corrected' version.

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V

 

[Stella_Omega]

Thank God for that. Even if he was right I would prefer to stick with my original paragraph, passive as it may be, than use his 'corrected' version.

x
V

yes, it was a good try, but...

 

[McKenna]

God. Check Weird's link. You have no idea what passive voice is.

Actually, Cant, he's not incorrect. (How's that for a double negative?!)

Check these examples:
http://oregonstate.edu/dept/eli/buswrite/passive_voice.html

http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/passivevoice.html

Passive voice may also include the use of the verb "to be" or "to have" plus the past participle of a second verb, i.e., "This book has been translated into sixteen different languages."

In Vermillion's sample paragraph, "was getting" and "had stopped" are passive voice.

Exerpt from link #2 above:
"Passive constructions are easy to spot; look for a form of "to be" (is, are, am , was, were, has been, have been, had been, will be, will have been, being) followed by a past participle. (The past participle is a form of the verb often, but not always, ending in "-ed." Some exceptions to the "-ed" rule are words like "paid" and "driven.") Here's a sure-fire formula for identifying the passive voice:

form of "to be" + past participle = passive voice

For example:
The metropolis has been scorched by the dragon's fiery breath.

When her house was invaded, Penelope had to think of ways to delay her remarriage."



Vermillion, passive voice isn't wrong, per se; some would argue it's a stylistic choice. Sentences do tend to be clearer when written in active voice, but sometimes couching the direct meaning behind the use of passive voice is a viable writing technique.

My 2¢.

 

[McKenna]

Hehehehe

I meant to do that.

<cough>