Recently I noticed that I was using a lot of passive voice expressions in my writing, while changing these I noticed that the active form was not always the best choice. Do others have any views on this?

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That is, has anyone come across examples of when using the passive has been preferable? Thanks for help on this technical question.

It may be supposed that the passive voice is not without advantage!

I suppose it all depends on what you're trying to say. The 'writing manual' (whatever that is) says you should always favour the active voice over the passive. On the other hand, if you are trying, for example, to create a sense of detatchment, ennui, limbo or other such mood, I would argue that the passive voice is useful. If the SOUND of what you're writing is important to you, then the passive voice has its place. Don't be dismissive of if. However, I would expect to find it in more 'literary' work rather than, say, a hard boiled thriller.

Yeah thanks - I write literary fiction - but it alarmed me recently (I was alarmed? - this is still passive isn't it?) when I found lots of examples of passive sentences then changed them all in a panic before changing them all back again. Can one train oneself to write active sentences? I always find that the passive voice comes naturally and I have to prune the prose afterwards. (A clear example is this paragraph itself!)

I don't detect examples of passive voice in the paragraph referred to. Do I misunderstand what passive voice is? (No reference book handy.)

Joe

If the passive voice comes more naturally to you, use it. Probably, it's what you're writing which is telling you to use that voice. I'm not a great fan of 'Training' yourself to use a style which doesn't come naturally to you. Unless there is a clear reason in your mind for doing this, then don't do it. A good example of what I'm talking about would be 'Ulysses'. Joyce deliberately used different styles in different chapters to create different moods and effects, but he always had a specific intent in mind in each section. Naturally, not all of these styles could be his own, so in many he would have been going against type. If you're going to do that, be clear what it is that you're aiming for. For instance, if you're writing a section in the first person, you might deliberately and aggressively use active voice to give a sense of the character who is supposedly writing the section, whereas if you were writing it yourself (ie, if you were actually living the character's life) you might employ a more passive voice.

Or am I over egging it here?

'I sent a letter' or 'he sent me a letter' is active - the subject (in the grammatical sense) of the verb is doing the action.

'I was sent a letter by him' or 'A letter was sent by me' is passive - the subject of the verb isn't doing the action.

But then I got wondering, and had a look in Fowler:

'I was alarmed by the dog' is passive, but 'I was alarmed to find that...' is a semi- or false passive, because the 'was' is the verb, and 'alarmed' is acting as an adjective. The test of a true passive construction seems to be that it has a mirror-image active form.

If passive voice comes naturally, I think FX is right and it doesn't work just to refuse to use it, or convert everything afterwards. On the other hand, an awareness that you do is a perhaps a good thing, because there may be times when your tendency undermines an effect (e.g. quick action, clarity) you're trying to get. Plus passive constructions tend to be a bit more complicated than active ones, so you lose some flexibility in moulding your sentences. Compare 'the cat sat on the mat' with 'the mat was sat on by the cat.'

As an exercise, you could try thinking up a narrator who absolutely would not use passives, and an incident, and write in his voice for a bit, just to exercise those active-mood muscles. In a workshop we were once set to write a piece without any imagery at all - similes or metaphors or verbs with a metaphorical flavour - and the only way I could get into it was by writing as a dog, because I'm sure dogs don't use metaphors. It wasn't a terribly good story in the end, but I learnt a lot!

Emma

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Sorry - realise I was pontificating at the beginning, and probably everyone know this stuff. Didn't mean to sound as if I was trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs!

No, this is good stuff Emma. Especially the semi-false-passive stuff - I think Microsoft Word picks it up in the style check. I get the feeling active creates choppier more direct sentences and passive is perhaps more rhythmical...I think there are many examples where the active is preferable. But again everything boils down to how it sounds.

But again everything boils down to how it sounds.

Yes! Which is why reading things aloud is so important. I'm not sure active is choppier, necessarily, it depends on the syntax more than the mood. I do think that if you want to get the reader feeling that what's happening is vivid and alive, active is generally better. And I do think passive-voiced sentences have the potential for getting in a syntactical muddle.

And have you ever read one of those ghastly bits of business speak with not an active verb for miles: 'the report was read aloud and it was decided that the dual carriageway being overdue to be resurfaced a resolution should be made that the work should nonetheless not be carried out immediately'

I think it's that kind of thing that the text-books are thinking of when they say don't use passive. People think it sounds cleverer, or posher, or as Fowler says, they don't want to admit which councillor actually argued against the road being re-done.

Emma

I tend to prefer the passive voice when I'm writing discursive things like software specifications (in my day job). In fiction, though, I find I write mainly in the active voice and just occasionally switch to passive, for example to show incidental observations, or when describing someone's appearance. I agree with others here that which you use depends on what effect or mood you're trying to create. The same "rulebook" that says to use the active voice also says you never start sentences with "and" or "but". But I often do that.

Alex

Blimey, it's more complicated than I thought. Or even more complicated than was thought by I or me.

"Call me Ishmael" - or - "If I were called Ishamel by you, I would consider myself well-called."

???

Joe

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On the other hand, Ishamel wouldn't be right - so try Ishmael.

J

I was half-way through reading Melville's grand opus when I left it at a pub (much to my dismay). When I returned to said pub, the cheery red-faced bartender looked at me as if I were mad. 'Sorry, you haven't come across a novel, I left it here the other night?' 'Er..no..what's it called?' After which I endured his shouting out to his bemused staff, 'Has anyone seen Moby Dick?' Sadly, nobody had seen him and I left empty-handed.

After which I endured his shouting out to his bemused staff, 'Has anyone seen Moby Dick?'

Not as bad - or as funny - as if he had shouted "Has anyone got Moby Dick?"

Alex

Just rent the video, Traveller. Trust me, the book's no loss.

Ouch what blasphemy - I thought it was one of the best novels I've ever read.

Ouch what blasphemy - I thought it was one of the best novels I've ever read.




If you're big into the natural history of whales. Me? Just gimme the story.