Passive NOT passive

Note from Donna Jo: The topic of critique pet peeves came up during a conversation in my weekly writing group. One of my critique partners, Andra Loy, pointed out how misunderstanding passive voice can trip up writers. It seems to be a common issue, so I asked her to explain it in a blog post to share here. Andra is a prepublished novelist, award winning author, English teacher, and fabulous critique partner.

Writing communities and critique groups are lifesavers. If no one had shared what they’d learned with me, I’d still be at the Run, Dick, Run stage with my writing. But advice, passed along and along, can become like the game of Telephone (or Post Office, whatever you called it as a kid). By the end, the “rule” is nothing like what it started as, and then it becomes as pernicious as gossip.

Here’s how the game plays out. Take, for instance, the following advice:

ACTIVE VOICE IS BETTER THAN PASSIVE VOICE.

Strong verbs help us avoid adverbs and show agency for our characters. Passivity is a bad thing. Great advice.

Kyle, a professional editor, tells Lisa to avoid passive voice.

Lisa nods. Grammar was her favorite topic in high school. Passive voice is when the subject isn’t doing the action.Lisa finds a clear example to help her remember.

The leaf is blown by the wind across the road.

The leaf —the subject of the sentence—isn’t actually doing anything. Passive leaves let the invisible wind do all the work.

Lisa tells Barb to avoid passive voice. Barb scratches her head and tries to remember her English classes. Back in seventh grade, she was busy passing notes and not listening. To explain, Lisa says, “Like in the sentence, The leaf is blown by the wind across the road.”Barb gets it now. She goes through her manuscript and finds all the sentences with this construction and replaces them. The wind now blows all her leaves.

Barb passes the reminder on to Alex. “No passive voice.” Alex nods. He’s heard of passive voice. His English teacher went through his essay on ancient weaving techniques and crossed out all his “to be” verbs. Good thing he remembers the list: am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been. He opens his manuscript. The first sentences are “Brian found Valerie in the library. She was reading War and Peace.” Alex deletes the passive WAS and writes, Brian found Valerie in the library. She read War and Peace.

Now we have a big problem. “Was reading” is not passive voice. It’s one of the verb tenses. The very valid, needed verb tense, past continuous/past progressive, indicates that action is in progress. It’s a huge clue to setting the scene and helping the reader figure out the TIMING of the action. Unfortunately, it uses the “to be” verb together with the -ing form of the main verb so we often sweep it up into the Passive Trash Bag.

If Valerie read War and Peace after Brian finds her, he’s going to have to wait a very long time. If she’s in the process of reading it, then he interrupts her and our plot may continue.

Not every case of “to be” indicates passive voice. Purging a manuscript of every “to be” verb deprives readers of the verb tense clues that orientate them to ongoing action, the timing of action, and the setting.

Of course, overuse of anything is to be cautioned against.

Now that was passive voice.

Andra Loy writes YA fantasy and speculative fiction for adults. She teaches English in the Czech Republic, where she was locked inside an abandoned train only once. Andra also won the ACFW Genesis Award once, which was much less traumatizing. You can find out more about Andra at andraloy.com.