Most people define passive voice as the use of the state-of-being verbs: is, am, was, and were. The claim is that we should avoid those verbs like a virus that will kill good writing. Is that true?
It depends.
- The best definition of “passive” is “not active.” Nothing is happening now, moving forward. We want John to do something, not be told that something exists or something was done.
- Many assume that passive voice is telling, not showing. And we’ve all been told by someone that we always want to show, which isn’t true. Telling is essential and becomes showing when readers feel a desperate need for the information.
- What is often regarded as passive can be the correct visual of an ongoing action. For example, John stood. That’s an accurate description of someone sitting at the table and moving to a standing position. But it would not be accurate to write: John stood in the corner. Not when he was already there, standing. And a minute later, he’s still standing there. It would be correct to say John was standing.
- Use of the past-perfect verbs with “had” are passive when they tell something that has already happened. Since we want to keep our stories moving forward with the action, we should rarely use “had.”
- The grammar checkers may give you a bad grade for what may actually be good writing. Or vice-versa. What you should be looking for are places where the story or message topic doesn’t move forward.
- When the subject of the sentence receives action instead of giving it, we have passive voice. But it could still have an active sense. Sometimes we know the effect and either don’t want to reveal or don’t know the cause. So the ball was caught. We don’t know who threw it. Maybe it was John. That’s the mystery, and we need that.
- Some writers think –ing verbs must always be avoided, a sign of weak writing. “The King of Ing” was written to illustrate how unnecessary those verbs might be (https://www.frankball.org/the-king-of-ing/). We want to minimize their use, but not avoid them altogether, not when they create the more accurate picture of a necessarily ongoing action. Unless it’s a sudden burst, the wind doesn’t just blow. It is blowing.
The bottom line, keep the story moving forward. And perhaps one of the best ways to do that is not to worry about passive voice. Forget the mask. Look for what will keep the story moving.
