Active vs. Passive - writerly thread

[sr71plt]

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¢.

No, no, no, no. Look for where the subject is. The verb "to be" and the perfect tenses are used in all sorts of modes--they aren't what determines passive. (Although they can signal that passive is in use.)

If the doer is in the subject position, it's active; if it's in the object position (generally a prepositional phrase as in your example), it's passive.

"She had stopped thinking" is active, active, active. (the doer of the action is in the subject position) Who was thinking? She

"she was getting into character" is active, active, active (the doer of the action is in the subject position) Who was getting into character? She

The verb "to be" doesn't determine passive--it just is part of the package of passive construction--and often signals passive construction.

The bottom line on this thread, though, I think, is that Vermillion's wording was just fine--certainly better than anything else suggested.

 

[Weird Harold]

No, no, no, no. Look for where the subject is. The verb "to be" and the perfect tenses are used in all sorts of modes--they aren't what determines passive. (Although they can signal that passive is in use.)

...

This contorversy over what is and isn't passive voice is why I rely on MS Word to spot "passive voice' for me -- I can't spot it reliably on my own, so I use the readability statistics on progressively smaller blocks of text until I can see what Word detects as "Passive Voice" and then try to parse out why Word thinks it's passive voice. Word's grammar check is easily confused by words that can be several parts of grammar and sometimes mistakes a subject for a verb and vice versa, but in general it's far better at spotting passive voice than I am unaided.

From what I've seen in my own writing, passive voice isn't the real problem when I have an "excessive passive voice" problem -- it's the passive nature of the writing that surrounds those few sentences that can be either active or passive -- High percentages of Passive Voice generally indicates a section of the story that needs work for a lot more problems than a simple translation into active voice.

 

[Bedtime Storyteller]

Ok. The English major has to weigh in on this one.

Active: The boy threw the ball.
Passive: The ball was thrown by the boy.

She has no passive voice in this paragraph.

 

[McKenna]

I. Give. Up.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1201/1408163640_670eacaa1c.jpg

*unsubscribe*

 

[MungoParkIII]

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¢.

Thank you McKenna, I knew Steffi wouldn't steer me wrong.

My reworked sentence was not really intended as a correction or as an improvement, it was identifying changes that would make the highlighted phrases active. Of course there are numerous other ways to make the changes. As you can see though, changing from passive voice to active voice can be as intense as rewriting the entire work.

MP3

 

[cantdog]

Thank you McKenna, I knew Steffi wouldn't steer me wrong.

My reworked sentence was not really intended as a correction or as an improvement, it was identifying changes that would make the highlighted phrases active. Of course there are numerous other ways to make the changes. As you can see though, changing from passive voice to active voice can be as intense as rewriting the entire work.

MP3

Dude. Was stopped by, that's passive. Had stopped, that's just past perfect.

 

[MungoParkIII]

Dude. Was stopped by, that's passive. Had stopped, that's just past perfect.

was getting ---- passive ---- we both get a 50

 

[sr71plt]

was getting ---- passive ---- we both get a 50

"was getting" = past perfect tense. Has no definitive connection with passive voice at all. (talk about not being able to absorb . . .)

Perhaps if someone is really interested, they should just look it up for themselves and do what they believe is right.

 

[CharleyH]

Exactly.

Exactly.

 

[Oblimo]

Exactly.

Exactly.

Precisely.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

V, I'm 40 pages into your story. You do tend to write passive, but it's readable and should come out with a respectable score from the readers. To me, it doesn't make a lot of difference.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

V, I'm 40 pages into your story. You do tend to write passive, but it's readable and should come out with a respectable score from the readers. To me, it doesn't make a lot of difference.

Jenny, from what V's posted here none is passive. 'Continuous future or continuous past' are not passive. You have to invert subject and object to create a passive, and V doesn't do that in the snippet I've read.

For writing creative fiction, the two voices express themselves well. 'Active' is on top and 'passive' is on the bed. It's not a question of verbs as some would have it.

Why is this a problem?
Edit to add; Passive can be very erotic - often id - but you do have to play with moods/tenses/POV to get the story right.

 

[Weird Harold]

For writing creative fiction, the two voices express themselves well. 'Active' is on top and 'passive' is on the bed. It's not a question of verbs as some would have it.

You're not making the distinction between a "passive" mood and Passive Voice. The former is a writing style, and the latter is a grammatical astructure that is ALL a question of subjectts, verbs, objects, and sentence structures.

Why is this a problem?

I quoted an old version of Purdue's OWL on passive voice early in this thread:

"...overuse of passive voice throughout an essay can make your prose seem flat and uninteresting.

I think "Flat and Uninteresting" is NOT the goal of most of the denizens of this forum.

 

[sr71plt]

You're not making the distinction between a "passive" mood and Passive Voice. The former is a writing style, and the latter is a grammatical astructure that is ALL a question of subjectts, verbs, objects, and sentence structures.



I quoted an old version of Purdue's OWL on passive voice early in this thread:

"...overuse of passive voice throughout an essay can make your prose seem flat and uninteresting.

I think "Flat and Uninteresting" is NOT the goal of most of the denizens of this forum.

What I've found more telling than flat and uninteresting is that passive slows the pace down (it does take more words overall and is more convoluted than active voice). In most cases, that turns out not to have been a very good idea. (But in a few cases it's exactly what is needed in context, too. So, there ya go.)

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Jenny, from what V's posted here none is passive. 'Continuous future or continuous past' are not passive. You have to invert subject and object to create a passive, and V doesn't do that in the snippet I've read.

For writing creative fiction, the two voices express themselves well. 'Active' is on top and 'passive' is on the bed. It's not a question of verbs as some would have it.

Why is this a problem?
Edit to add; Passive can be very erotic - often id - but you do have to play with moods/tenses/POV to get the story right.

I'm looking at a total 40 Word Pages, El. The passage V posted is not passive. But in the longer read she switches back and forth. It still doesn't bring down a damn good story.

 

[Weird Harold]

What I've found more telling than flat and uninteresting is that passive slows the pace down ...

Whether you describe the effect as "flat and unintersting." "slow paced," or just "boring," the end result is text that the reader tends to just scan or skip over completely.

It's a usefull thing to know if there's something you just have to reveal to the readers, but would rather that they didn't really notice it -- like a crucial clue to a mystery, or something that is supposed to come as surprise to some character later.

Like I said earlier, Passive Voice has it's uses, but it should be used deliberately and not by accident.