Writing Passive

    It has come to my attention that there are many in the writing community who haven't the faintest clue what passive voice is. In this blog post, I will clear up what passive voice is, what it is not, and when and how to use it, based on the information I have gotten from the book "Writing Tools" by Roy Peter Clark.

    Note also that there is a difference between passive voice and passive verbs, but that is a discourse that I will leave to Mr. Clark, as he has more experience and more eloquence than I do. But do recognize that, while I'll give a basic overview of passive voice, if you really want an understanding of all the parts that go into it, you'd be best served reading Mr. Clark's book.

    So, what is passive voice? To put it as simply as possible, the difference between active and passive voice is whether or not the subject of a given clause is acting or being acted upon--and because it's based on clauses, a sentence can contain both active voice and passive voice at the same time.

    Passive voice has very little to do with the word "was," despite most popular writing advice insisting that if you eliminate as many instances of "was" in your writing as possible, you'll find yourself getting rid of passive voice all over the place. While there is some correlation between passive voice and "was," that correlation is far, far less absolute than many think it to be.

    Here's an example of an example sentence you might see illustrating that passive voice is bad: "I was watching in horror as the king was beheaded." That's a pretty rough sentence, right? Passives all over the place... right?

    Let me rewrite that sentence. See if you can figure out what changed: "I watched in horror as the king was beheaded."

    One word removed. "Was."

    A lot of conventional writing advice would say, "Great! You got rid of passive voice in your sentence! It's so much better now!"

    To which I reply, "The voice is exactly the same between the two sentences. All I took out was an unnecessary word."

    The sentence contains one active clause and one passive clause in both examples. Let me break it down.

    In the original sentence, we have two base clauses: "I was watching" and "the king was beheaded." The rest is either connecting the two clauses (as) or providing extra detail about the narrator's feelings (in horror).

    "I was watching" is in active voice--the subject (I) was performing an action (watching).

    "The king was beheaded" is in passive voice--the subject (the king) was being acted upon (beheaded). He didn't behead himself, someone else did it.

    In the edited sentence, we still have two base independent clauses: "I watched" and "the king was beheaded." Once again, the rest is either connecting the two clauses or providing extra detail about the narrator's feelings. But the first subject (I) is still making an action (watching), and the second subject (the king) is still being acted upon (beheaded), so the first clause is still active, and the second clause is still passive.

    What if I wanted to remove the passive voice from it?

    Well, I'd write that like this: "I watched in horror as the king lost his head."

    The trouble with doing it this way is that it's now far more ambiguous. "The king lost his head." Okay? Is this literally losing his head, as in being beheaded, or is he just losing control for some reason? Additionally, this version actually has more words in it than the previous.

    To solve those issues, it could also be done like this: "I watched in horror as the executioner swung his axe." Both clauses are still active, and as long as we have the context clue that the king is kneeling over the chopping block, we can infer that the king is dead even if I don't include an additional sentence to communicate as much. But now we have need for two or three sentences, where we previously only needed one.

    What if I wanted to make the whole thing passive?

    I'd write that like this: "I was forced to watch in horror as the king was beheaded."

    It's a bit longer than the edited active/passive version, but it adds additional context--the narrator is implied to be a prisoner of some kind, too. That's excellent, right?

    Well, somewhat. But now the "in horror" bit feels clunky, so it needs another edit, and that edit is going to need a dependent clause and a bit of active voice: "I was forced to watch, horror clenching in my gut, as the king was beheaded."

    While this is the longest single-sentence version we've had so far, every piece serves a purpose. "I was forced to watch" tells us that the narrator is a prisoner of some kind. "Horror clenching in my gut" gets the narrator's emotional state across. "The king was beheaded" tells us why the narrator is so horrified. The voice pattern for all of this is Passive/Active/Passive, and during the one active clause in this sentence, the thing that is acting is the narrator's horror, not the narrator themself.

    So, when and how do you use passive voice?

    Passive voice works best when trying to portray the subject of a clause as a victim. Journalists and reporters use this all the time--just think of the way headlines are written. "63-year-old man beaten! Courts in uproar!" And then, were this an actual newspaper report, the beginning of the article would go something like, "A 63-year-old man was beaten in Central mall yesterday. He was in critical condition when the paramedics arrived and was admitted to the hospital with serious injuries." The only bits of active wording in there are "Courts in uproar" and "paramedics arrived." The man has done nothing.

    The tricky thing about this way of wording articles is that it instantly makes the reader feel sympathy for the old man. However, there could be important context (if the journalist doesn't leave any information out) that would completely change the meaning of that first bit.

    For example, the end of the article might include an interview with the person who beat up the old man, during which you might read a quote like this, "'He was threatening my child, saying he'd get his gun and shoot next time he saw her. I couldn't let that stand.'" Whoa! All of a sudden, the whole meaning has changed! The old man has done something now, and all that sympathy the reader felt for him is now gone.

    This is where the tricky part comes in. A journalist who's trying to defend the old man will write the article with the old man's passive-voice suffering at the top and the parent's accusations at the bottom, relying on the fact that most readers skim or stop reading after the first few paragraphs of the article. Most readers will leave feeling sympathy for the old man, and never find out that he had been threatening a child prior.

    A more honest reporter would do things differently, and focus more on the cause and effect so their readers would leave the beginning of the article with a much more balanced view of the situation. Their headline would be, "63-year-old-man threatens child; father takes matters into his own hands." Here, both clauses are in active voice. Both subjects have done something, and the full context of the situation is much more immediately apparent. Then, the beginning of the article would detail events in a much more active-voice, cause-and-effect sort of way.

    Note also that a journalist doesn't necessarily have to be trying to hide information with their use of passive voice. They may simply be using it to make readers feel more sympathetic toward a desired party, which may be a good thing--for example, an article that describes the demise of a flock of birds in passive voice, making the birds the victims, to raise awareness about how the things we humans do impact the world around us. Figuring out the journalist's intent and the techniques they're using in a given article is part of the reason critical thinking when reading is so important.

    Anyhow, thanks for stopping by. Hopefully something in this post is helpful to you, and if there are any other English conventions you'd like to understand better, feel free to let me know! As a person with a special interest in writing and all things related to it, I'd love to share what I've learned. Both comments and the Contact form will get through to me. :)