Whether you're a blogger, a fiction-writer or a freelancer, you've probably heard this piece of advice:
"Never use the passive voice."
Before I dig into this one and why it's important,
I'll quickly recap what "passive" and "active" voices are:
The active voice is the way we'd normally speak and write, with sentences following a subject-verb-object order. It looks like this:
John ate the cake.
("John" is the subject; "ate" is the verb; "the cake" is the object.)
In the passive voice, the sentence gets turned
around so that the object comes first, like this:
The cake was eaten by John.
("John" is still the subject of the sentence and "the cake" is still the object. Note how the verb has changed, from "ate" to "was eaten by").
You can probably see, straight away, that the active voice is more direct and concise. We need to use more words to express the same action using the passive voice. That's one reason why
writers are often advised to avoid it.
But here's the crucial thing about the passive voice: you can use it to omit the subject of a sentence altogether.
Sometimes (indeed, often), that's a bad idea. It leads to unclear sentences – or ones where someone weasels out of taking responsibility. For instance:
Mistakes were made.
An apology was
issued.
(These might be completely appropriate in dialogue, however, if you have a character trying to avoid facing up to their actions, or one trying to carefully omit important details.)
It's possible, though, to have a situation where the subject is less important than the object. In these cases, it may be completely appropriate to omit the subject – to avoid taking attention away from the object of the
action.
For instance:
The victims were flown to safety.
If you're writing a piece focusing on the victims (rather than, say, on the pilot), this sentence could be perfectly appropriate. Telling readers that "Pilot John Smith flew the victims to safety" inevitably brings the focus onto John Smith instead of the victims, which may not be what you intend.
As with the
other pieces of bad writing advice we've covered (
#1: Write What You Know and
#2: Don't Use Adjectives), the "rule" to avoid the passive voice is well-intentioned. In many cases, it is better
(clearer and more direct) to use the active voice. Sometimes, though, the passive voice is perfectly appropriate ... and as a writer, it's up to you to judge when.
