There’s one piece of common writing advice that just about makes me want to either weep or bang my head against the desk in frustration. This piece of advice to writers suggests that one shouldn’t use passive tense. These articles sometimes then go on to suggest doing a global search for “is” and “was”, as this will help you spot passive tense so you can eliminate it.
Now, where do I start pointing out what’s wrong with this advice? To me, this sort of advice makes two mistakes: (a) the writers of such columns don’t seem to know what passive tense actually is and (b) they assume that passive tense is always wrong.
Now, I understand where they’re coming from. It’s true that when we write, we should strive to be as vivid as we can, to help our readers picture the action of the story as clearly as we can. Choosing good, strong verbs and giving our writing punch is one way to do that. However, although “passive” and “weak” are more or less synonymous in everyday speech, we are talking about grammar here and they don’t mean the same thing.
Let me say that another way: passive tense is not necessarily weak writing.
What Is Passive Tense?
OK, it’s time for a little grammar lesson. Gather round, children, and listen to Mother. We’ll start with a sentence that is in active tense (i.e. not passive tense):
A mosquito bit me.
Here, the mosquito is the subject of the sentence – it’s the one doing the biting. I’m the object in this sentence, as I’m on the receiving end of the action and getting bitten. In English (and in quite a few other languages), we can see that I’m on the receiving end of the action, because the pronoun changes to “me”, although it would be “I” if I was the actor (which would be the case if I bit the mosquito). In this sentence, the subject, and therefore the main focus of the sentence is the mosquito.
Now let’s move into passive tense:
I was bitten by a mosquito.
Here, the use of “I” shows that from a grammatical point of view, I’m the subject of the sentence. This sentence is all about me. However, I’m not biting anything. I’m on the receiving end of the action. The mosquito is still the one doing the biting. I’m not doing anything here, so although I’m the subject of the sentence, I’m passive, letting things happen to me. (Actually, I’m probably trying not to scratch the itch and I’m trying to swat the mosquito, but we’re talking grammar here.)
Still keeping things in passive tense, I can also say this:
I was bitten.
Here, the sentence is all about me and I’m on the receiving end of the bite. However, the mosquito has vanished (which they often do after biting). The mosquito is irrelevant and unnecessary to the sentence. In fact, it might not have been a mosquito that bit me; it could have been a gnat or a sandfly. I might not know. I possibly don’t care.
However, the next few sentences don’t use passive tense, even though they use “is” and “was”:
The mosquito was flying around the room.
I was listening for that telltale whine.
The mosquito is annoying me.
Hopefully, this little illustration, which has left me itchy just thinking about it, will help you know how to spot passive tense when you see it. Passive tense gets used when:
· The main focus of the sentence (the subject) is on the receiving end of the action (the verb), and
· The entity responsible for the action is unimportant or unknown.
How To Spot Passive Tense In Its Native Habitat
Because passive tense makes the responsible entity look unimportant or unknown, passive tense has got a bad name. It’s a linguistic way of signalling “Move along; nothing to see here.” This means that it turns up when someone is admitting that something has happened but doesn’t want to take responsibility for action. This happens a lot in politics and business. You know the sort of thing. Here are some examples taken from my local district council website (verbs in passive tense are in capitals):
Our roads WERE BUILT in a time of prosperity.
Public meetings HAVE BEEN HELD throughout the district.
These areas ARE nationally OWNED AND MANAGED by the Department of Conservation.
Funding HAS BEEN RECEIVED for two upcoming events.
The speed limit at the entry to [Town A] (from the [Location B] end) HAS BEEN DECREASED.
So far, so good. In four of these examples, the people who built the roads, held the meetings, received the funding and decreased the speed limit are invisible. In the fifth, we can see the responsible agent (the Department of Conservation). The agents are also invisible in the following classic wriggle-phrase:
A serious mistake HAS BEEN MADE.
But they’re not going to tell you who made the mistake or who was responsible. Move along; nothing to see here. It annoys people and rightly so.
Passive tense is also used a lot in scientific and academic writing:
The sample WAS HEATED to 90°C and ANALYSED for organic carbon.
A colour change from red to blue WAS OBSERVED.
Rats WERE FED a diet of plain boiled white rice plus a vitamin supplement.
In this case, passive tense is expected. After all, in a scientific report, the focus is on the materials, the methods and the results. The reader assumes that the team of scientists who wrote the paper (or at least their lab assistants) heated the sample and analysed it, observed the colour change and fed the rats. Using passive tense probably became popular in the early days of scientific reports because it suggested the objectivity of the experiment and of science in general. It didn’t sound quite as weighty or as truly scientific if someone wrote “I fed the rats a diet of plain boiled white rice and a vitamin supplement.” Passive tense also makes things seem cleaner and more clinical, especially when it comes to what is likely to happen to those rats after a few weeks of eating that diet: “The rats were euthanised,” or “The rats were sacrificed,” sounds better than “We killed the rats.” Move along; nothing to see here.
The Zombie Test
I can’t move on without mentioning the Zombie Test for detecting passive tense: if you can insert the words “by zombies” at the end of a sentence and it sounds correct – grammatically speaking – then it’s passive tense. You can substitute something else for zombies if you prefer, such as characters from Middle Earth. For fun, let’s apply this test to the examples earlier:
Our roads were built in a time of prosperity by dwarves.
Public meetings have been held throughout the district by orcs.
Funding has been received by Gollum for two upcoming events – yes, precious!
The speed limit at the entry to [Town A] (from the [Location B] end) has been decreased by Gandalf (because you shall not pass).
The sample was heated to 90°C and analysed for organic carbon by Sauron while he was making the One Ring.
A colour change from red to blue was observed by Frodo.
Rats were fed a diet of plain boiled white rice plus a vitamin supplement by Saruman.
Passive Tense In Fiction
OK, so passive tense is acceptable in academic writing. What about fiction? Does passive tense have a place here? If you want to write a novel, should you ruthlessly edit out passive tense whenever you see it?
Well, for a start, you shouldn’t rely on ruthlessly removing something absolutely everywhere in a novel without making a distinction between narrative and dialogue. A character can use passive tense and can break writing rules when they talk.
But in narrative? In general, sticking with active verb forms is a good choice. However, sometimes you will want your focus to be on whoever or whatever is on the receiving end rather than the agent:
Gawain’s wounds were stitched up and his broken leg was set in a cast.
Lancelot was shaken off his feet.
The cloak had been half eaten by moths.
Could you rewrite these so they were active? Of course you could – if that was the effect you were after – but notice how the emphasis shifts.
An earthquake shook Lancelot off his feet.
Doctors stitched up Gawain’s wounds and set his broken leg in a cast.
Moths had half eaten the velvet cloak.
Passive tense is also handy in situations where you need to say that a character has gone through something dark and traumatic, or something extremely tedious, and you choose not to show this happening directly.
She closed the door and let out a long sigh. For the past hour, she HAD BEEN LECTURED, HARANGUED, BULLIED and CAJOLED non-stop.
Here, we don’t really need to see the hour-long lecture, but we do need to know that it happened.
She turned away from what lay on the altar before the idol, feeling sick. The victim HAD BEEN VIOLATED and MUTILATED.
Here, going into detail would make things too R-rated, so passive tense can do its job of saying “Move along; nothing you want to see here.”
In other words, there may be times when passive tense is called for (and that’s passive tense). Those times may not be very often but they may come. It really depends on you and what you want to emphasise. Hard and fast rules won’t help you; global find and replace definitely won’t.
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