Passive verbs sprinkle my writing like a little salt on a dish. They're not like you would use them on french fries but more like a garnish. That being said, I have a few per chapter and almost all of them are in dialogue. I think ProWritingAid is too picky. On the other hand, some of them are legit and I restructured the sentences to avoid them. Here is an example. Vincent is a blood drinker, called a deathwalker. Thorberry is a mental companion. (Yeah, I know I got a few of those if you read my comma post.) He is interacting with the world via a hallucination type illusion. They are having a mental conversation. Vincent found a vein and sank his fangs into it. An awful taste of twisted bitterness filled his mouth, so bad he recoiled and wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand. That’s evil you taste. Thorberry stood. You’ll get used to it over here. Ugh, how can you stand it? Vincent asked, pulling out a fresh cup and draining it. The purple cup purifies it before sending it to the rest. Thorberry stood, gesturing toward the cave entrance. Too much evil blood will affect your personality until it is used. I often become more sadistic for a while. Most of the passive verb is in dialogue, especially Thorberry's, who is 350 years older than the rest of the cast, being undead. I figured that he would have a more old-fashioned way of speaking than the others. I like to vary how the cast speaks but PWA nitpicks on some of them. Most I ignore but some if them, especially the king, who has speaks formally, I accept. What's your take on a little passive verb usage? I'm eager to see.
You're fine. Those grammar checkers are terrible with passives. They're just using an algorithm and they have no real thought in the editing. Many times they'll call lines passive that aren't. And really, passives should be there. They have a very important function. I fully agree with your choice. It would be odd if most of the lines were passive though. That's what you worry about fixing. Passives always stutter along looking backwards. Too many of them make the paragraph hesitate. Their effect when they're in the proper place is an asset. The grammar checkers don't understand that because they don't understand anything. The lines you're pointing out aren't active or passive. There's no action in them at all. That's fine too. Not a single line I've typed in this paragraph is active or passive . . . The first sentence looks that way. (<-- still not active or passive). It isn't though. There is an active phrase starting the first sentence. That's as close as I got. (There are still none, haha.) When your sentence uses just a linking be-verb (is, are, was, were, etc) or even a more direct type of linking verb (seemed, looks, tastes, appeared), there is no action. You're expressing a state of being, an equivalency. No action travels through the verb. The sentence is stative and flat. In active voice the action goes ---> across the verb. In passive voice the action goes <--- across the verb. In stative there is no action, and so there is no voice. . . . A long time ago, active/passive voice was tied solely to transitive verbs. If you didn't have a transitive verb, then you had no voice in the sentence. That's not a mistake. It's just a quality. Not every sentence ends with a period either. It's just how certain lines are. So you would have this: He runs the Tasty Freeze every Friday. (active voice verb, the action goes across "runs" from the subject, it connects with "Tasty Freeze") He runs. (not active voice) He runs around the park. (also not active voice, the ending is adverbial, it's where he runs) That is long gone and I can't find anyone talking about it. Now, everyone looks at the subject and uses that to decide if a sentence is active or passive. Even the big style guides have switched to defining active/passive voice by looking solely at the subject's behavior. You can still talk about the voice of a transitive verb. Trans-itive. The "trans" means that actions can go across it, leading to voice. Intransitive verbs do not allow actions to go across them (He runs.), and so they have no voice. But everyone has forgotten where the term "voice" came from. There seems to be a second kind of voice applied to the sentence itself, and that's what every single webpage demonstrating active/passive uses. I've been looking into this for the last weeks and I can't find any exceptions. Well, there was one, sort of. I wish I could get some grammarians to answer this, and I don't mean randos (like me) from the web. Like maybe I could ask Steven Pinker or some other professor. Are there two definitions of voice or has the old definition evolved into current theory?
Oh, fun fact. There's also mediopassive. This uses the modern definition of active/passive. The action seems to come from the subject while still happening to the subject. There is no hidden actor involved. The pizza cooked in the oven. (mediopassive, the action comes from the subject but returns to it) Those are also perfectly fine constructions. The board seethed with anger when Seven Crowns pointed out more pointless grammar. (mediopassive, the "seething" happens to the board as they act) So the modern take on those lines is to call them "active." After all, the subject seems to be doing something, but when you really look at the verb, it's sending its action back to the subject, which makes it passive too. It's like a Schrodinger's Cat of grammar. "How can this subject simultaneously exist in a state of activity and passivity? Why, it's mediopassive!" The old verbal definition would simply say there is no voice because those verbs were intransitive. But this is a Black Mirror universe where only I remember that such a definition existed.
Wreybies remembers (as does Pepperidge Farm), but he isn't around anymore. I remember him bringing it up, and I looked into it but couldn't really understand it (or couldn't remember it, which I suppose amounts to the same thing). This explains it in a way I think I understand. So, it requires a subject and an object, and the verb links them through action one way or the other. It's pretty complicated, and I probably won't remember it in two minutes. It's that epehemeral kind of understanding that trembles like a soap bubble even as I think I get it, and later I can't recall it.
Right, it's the old-school definition when you're talking about objects, at least when you're requiring them. An object, real or implied, had to be there and the verb had to be transitive. The modern way is to treat active/passive voice as a quality of the the subject and the verb. So even though there's no object to receive the action, everyone will call a sentence "active voice" if the action comes from the subject (e.g., "Garfield eats a lot."), whereas the old-school method would say that doesn't have a voice. These days you just look at the subject and see if it's performing the action or receiving the action. Is the verb going away from the subject (active) or toward the subject (passive)? Just keep in mind that linking-verb statements like "Garfield is a cat" are still not active or passive. They're just a state of existence. Garfield isn't doing anything. He's just there, in some state, and there is no action. I spent the whole week researching this, so it's funny it was asked here. I'm serious about asking Steven Pinker about this. I'm going to find where his blog or whatever is at . . . Someone has to know why the definitions changed. And they definitely did because if you open up an official guide like the Chicago Manual, it will talk about active/passive in terms of who is the actor. It says nothing about transitive verbs. This isn't just catchall advice from the internet. Official guides have committed to it. I miss Wreybies, too. He was a powerful force on the board. I hear he's doing okay. . . . edit: Even my dumb example wound up being tricky. I'll clarify it before someone gets mad. Garfield eats a lot. ("a lot" is adverbial and tells how he eats. Modern-school calls this active. Old-school says it has no voice.) Garfield eats. (same as above except the adverbial is gone) Garfield eats lasagna. (now old-school/modern-school agree. It is active voice.) Garfield is full. (stative, no voice in modern- or old-school.) Garfield is a figment of Jon's imagination. (same as above) Garfield was once locked up in the pound. (passive, old- and modern-school agree) oh, and the the mediopassive . . . Garfield basks in a sunbeam. (modern says its mediopassive because the actor receives his own action, old-school says no voice because there's no transitive verb)
I'm fascinated by this. Partly because I believe knowing the old-school ways strengthens your understanding. But ultimately it's probably just academic, and the only thing you can do with it is argue with people on message boards. I might just try to memorize it though.
I think part of the problem here is that you are using a series of short, clipped sentences. They are all very simple. It sort of reads like "See Spot Run." I think if you mix up some of your sentence structures and play with the length of some of them, the verb thing might take care of itself somewhat. Maybe what you posted is just an example and not from your actual writing, but I hope you can see what I mean based on the example you posted.
Thorberry has a clipped quality to his speech. He learned how to talk at eight years old instead of naturally as a toddler. Although he lived for 350 years he never lost this quality because of how the death stasis works.
I can understand what you're saying, but you also have to think about how this reads. Ultimately, you don't want it to sound like a children's book or just come across as bad form. I think you can develop your prose a little more without compromising your character. I see this use of short, clipped sentences as something holding your writing back and not really accomplishing what you're setting out to do. Just my opinion. Maybe something to think about.
I would vary your sentence lengths and also the structure. This will produce a more enjoyable experience for the reader. And I don't think you have to lose the voice of your character. Dialog in one thing, but in the narrative this approach isn't really going to work, IMO. You don't want all your sentences to be a variation of see spot run. I know where you're at because I was once there, too. I thought it was "my style." But in reality it was actually holding my writing back and therefore wasn't much of a style. I was reluctant to change the way I had been writing, but when I tried a new approach it made a big difference. Because I sort of know where you are with this, I, also, know the idea of changing the way you have been wring your story can seem like a big undertaking, but I think you'll find that it's not as hard to do as you think. And, in the end, the results will speak for themselves.
Also, it wouldn't hurt you to sprinkle in some details. I think you want to give your prose some texture.
I hoped you would give me an example by restructuring what I have. That often works better than telling someone something. It all boils down to the show don't tell mantra.
I think it's something you should play around with yourself. I'm not big on rewriting things for writers. And I don't really think this is very hard or complex. It's also something you should carry over to the rest of your writing where you see appropriate. So, I'm not really sure how just a few examples from someone who really doesn't know your characters or your story is going to help much. You would know best what to add, combine and rework what you have. I do think this is something that could really help you. Also, this has nothing to do with showing or telling. I would leave that out of it and just focus on the language and the pace you can create with playing around with your writing when it comes to this. Good luck!
Right. It's checking your sentences using formulas and doesn't always call it correctly. Here, let me make an impossible one for it. My brother was jumped up on Robitussin, and so I took him to Emergency Care. "Jumped up" is a phrasal. The preposition is part of the verb "jumped", more or less. Think of it as "jumped-up," like it were a single word. But here, the phrasal is acting like an adjective. You're basically saying: My brother was high. (stative, no action, a state of being is described) My brother was jumped up. (stative, no action even though it's a phrasal, a state of being is described) My brother was jumped up on Robitussin. (same as above, the last preposition just describes the jumped-uppedness.) A grammar checker sees "was jumped" and assumes that's passive because how could it not be? Even to us, it kind of looks that way. The Robitussin did it to him, right? So the action must go back to "brother." But there's no action and that's not passive. The assumption is wrong when you really tear it apart. Those programs just aren't smart enough to find passives yet. At least, the ones in Word, etc. aren't up to it. For example: My brother was jumped up on Robitussin Street. (passive) Right? Like a mugger jumped him on this oddly named street. The action goes from an unknown actor (the mugger) through the verb and to the subject, "brother." It's very passive. But it's possible for the reader to know this already. L@@K . . . Robitussin Street is the worst area in town. My brother was jumped up on Robitussin. (passive) His assailants forced him to drink cough syrup. After that, my brother was jumped up on Robitussin. (stative, not passive) He passed out. Good luck, grammar checking program. ------------------------- Passive verb phrases have a "to be" verb of some flavor tacked onto a transitive past-tense verb. The actor will be over on the right of the verb, sending an action to the subject. Well, or the actor is implied. It would make sense if it were there, and it would fit the structure. Think of the "by zombies" trick. My window was smashed by a neighborhood hooligan. He is a menace. The first sentence is passive. Its verb phrase is a being-verb (was) + an action-verb (smashed). The second sentence has no voice. There is no action in it. When a being verb is used that way, it's called a linking verb. Linking verbs have no voice. It's an equivalent state of being. It links the subject to a quality. No action takes place, so no voice exists. All the schnapps in the house was missing. My Uncle Leo was smashed. (stative) Hooligans ran through the city. My window was smashed. (passive)
I stopped using grammarly for now until my trial of ProWritingAid expires. There were too many conflicts and stuff. But yeah, a few "passive" verbs are fine.
Personally I would say the active verbs and specific details are more saltlike, because salt is a little burst of sudden flavor. The passive verbs and the rest of the telling are more like filler. You need a lot of that, and only a few well-chosen grains of salt in the right places.
Xoic attempts to edumacate himself Last night after a few hours away from the internet I tried to remember this and failed. I remembered much of it, but not all. So I'm trying to gain a more complete understanding and hammer it farther into my head like an iron nail. I'll share my out-loud thinking here. 1st thought: Do these examples (posted by @Seven Crowns yesterday) imply that the subject always comes first and the object always at the end? Because sentences can be constructed the other way around. Example The time was struck by the coocoo clock. Self-response: Oh. Ok, I see—when you put the object first the action does move to the left, because the subject is what performs the action and the object is what recieves it. The action does move to the left in my example. If I say "The coocoo clock struck the time" the action moves to the right, from the subject through the verb to the object. And it does become active. 2nd thought: Can I construct a sentence that moves to the right but is passive, or that moves to the left but is active? Self-response: Well, try it. The cat eats the mouse. Active, action moves to the right. The cat was eaten by the mouse. Passive, action moves to the left. So far it holds true. Can I break the rule? It seems like it should be possible. Does the subject always have to be at the beginning and the object at the end (in an active sentence)? If so I wasn't aware of that rule. Let me try to reverse that. The wall was painted by the painter. Ok, I put the subject (the painter) at the end and the object (the wall) at the beginning, and it does make it passive. Ok, I tentatively accept that the rule is valid. 3rd thought: What does stative mean? I suppose it must mean the verb refers to a state—a state of being. Is-ness. So the stative verbs are the ones we're told today are naughty and passive. Is, was, were, do, does, etc. 4th thought: So, does this all mean that, if the subject is at the beginning, before the verb and the object, and if the verb isn't a stative one (ha! Isn't!) that it's necessarily an active sentence? It would seem so. I often find if I want to learn something the thing to do is to think into it and try to find other ways to state it. If you can successfully do that you'll be better able to remember it, because you dragged it through your mind actively rather than passively. This is exactly why in school they make us do the exercises and answer the review questions and take the tests. Another way to state it: Subject—Verb—Object is standard form, and is active . If you flip it you get Object—Verb—Subject, and it becomes passive. Unless the verb is a form of is or does (representing the simple state of existence), in which case it's neither active nor passive, it's Stative.
Your subject still comes first, even if the sentence is passive voice. Think of it as the syntactic subject. An object might feel like a subject, but it's only a feeling. The nachos were all eaten by Fat Dan. Nachos is the subject. With voice you start thinking about agents/actors. If the subject is the actor, the sentence is active. If the actor is hiding over on the other side of verb, sometimes invisibly at the end, then the subject is passive because it's meekly waiting for the action to happen to it. By stative I mean a sentence that is static, unaffected by action, an equivalency. It just says how something is. (A = B. Fat Dan is well fed. Nachos are my mana from Heaven.) There's no action in it because all it has is a linking verb. (is, was, were, etc.) All that does is tie a quality to the subject. I wonder if it is possible to build a passive going right to left? It's possible to use styles to flip SVO word order to OVS. Can that be made passive? I've never considered it . . . SVO: My cat roams the house at will. OVS: At will through the house roams my cat. I'm not really sure if there's a way to do it . . . maybe? That feels passive because you again have a left-moving action, but it's really just a style trick. With that the subject really is on the right of the verb.
You know originally that's the way I wrote it, but then I changed it. In a sense it seems like Fat Dan should be the subject, because he's the active agent—the one doing the eating. But I suppose nachos are still the subject. So, does the subject always come first, and the object always last? This was my original question, before I decided to complicate it all. I'm glad I included the "Attempts to" in my subtitle above, because it looks like my first attempt was a big mess. Another fine mess I've gotten myself into. But it means my original, simpler idea was right, In a way that's gratifying. Yes, saying that makes me feel less foolish.
Ok, at least I was right on this one, though we seem to be approaching it from different perspectives. All the verbs you listed are states of mere existence, of being. And of course static and state come from the same root word and mean the same thing (though they both also have alternate meanings).
English is SVO, so our subjects are always first. There are ways to reverse it with OVS and sound like Shakespeare (see above). Questions (interrogatives) are in OVS order naturally and the subject often winds up at the end or even mixed into the verb. Where are the nachos? (nachos is the subject) My theory is that questions in prose often fit so well because they break the SVO rhythm. Plus they often change direction and look at the reader for meaning. That binds them tight to the lines around them. That's just my own writing theory though. I don't think it's provable.
