Passive Verb? I Think Not

A while past, I asked afellow author to swap ads in our newsletters for one of each other’s books. Shesuggested we read each other’s books to see if we were ‘compatible’ with eachother’s audience.

So I read her book ofshort stories and although I didn’t find a lot of grammar or punctuationmistakes, I wasn’t impressed. Most of them seemed to be ‘slices of life’, notactual stories. She was writing a single scene that had no problem to solve,and therefore, had no resolution. I was carefully crafting a soft critique whenshe emailed me with the news that she didn’t feel my book was fitting for heraudience.

Her reason? It had toomany ‘passive verbs’ like ‘seemed’.

Years ago, I was toldto avoid ‘seemed’ in one of my short stories because it was a passive verb. Atthat time, I decided to research exactly what was a passive verb so that Icould avoid them. (Authors are always being told to ‘avoid passive verbs!’ withoutany explanation of what a passive verb is.)

A passive verb is whensomething is acted upon by someone or something.

Found artifacts arestudied by archeologists. – Passive

Archeologists studyartifacts that have been found. – Not Passive

 

Beach rocks are poundedinto sand by recurring waves. - Passive

Recurring waves poundbeach rocks into sand. – Not Passive

 

Those holsters werecrafted by a novice leathersmith. – Passive

A novice leathersmithcrafted those holsters. – Not Passive

 

Mary was kissed bySteve. – Passive

Steve kissed Mary. -Not Passive

 

Another way to think ofit is that with an active verb, the subject does something. With a passiveverb, the subject is acted upon. When searching for passive verbs, look for a‘be’ verb (be, am, are, is, been, being, was, were) as part of the verb. In theabove examples, we have are studied, are pounded, were crafted, and was kissed.A ‘be’ verb often (but not always) signals a passive verb. Does it have a ‘by’phrase behind the verb?

Some writers attempt to‘correct’ passive verbs by eliminating the ‘by’ phrase. It doesn’t work. “Marywas kissed.” is still a passive verb even if you don’t know who kissed her.

‘Seemed’ is not, by itself,a passive verb. “Everything seemed normal” is not a passive verb. How about“Mother seemed distraught by the news”? It’s got a ‘by’ phrase. But it doesn’thave a be verb, so frankly, I’m in a quandary, and would probably rewrite thesentence, possibly the entire scene.

Let’s take a closerlook. ‘Mother’ is the subject, ‘seemed’ is the verb, ‘distraught’ is anadjective describing the subject, and ‘by the news’ is a phrase answering thequestion of why. The news made mother distraught, so the subject has been actedupon, making this a passive verb. That’s how my thinking goes. Does yourthinking agree with mine?

I’d love to hear yourthoughts on this subject, as well as where you get your information on passiveverbs.