passive voice question.

[smellycat6464]

I consider myself pretty skilled at detecting passive voice and knowing when to use it.

However I was reading, and I came across the phrase, "The arrows were falling."

For some reason, this sentence triggers passive to me, because I was taught in school that *usually* passive construction is "be+verbed," and that "by" is often a good indicator.

However, is this just simply the imperfect (if that's the right tense I'm thinking of) and active. Because a passive construction would be "The arrows were felled by their archers." Or something along those lines....I don't even know if "felled" is a verb haha, maybe "loosed" is better, not that it makes the sentence any good.

I know a "be" verb doesn't *always* indicate passive voice, and I have a feeling this is one of those scenarios where it is active and uses "to be" but I can't think of a passive sentence without "to be" in it.

Sorry for the finicky question, but it's just been in the back of my mind

[Fallen]

Just think 'tense', 'voice' and 'aspect'

The arrow fell (past tense)
The arrow was fired (passive voice be + ed participle)
The arrow was falling (past progressive (tense + aspect))

The be + participle marks both voice and aspect, so they are easy to confuse

Try and extend using a by-phrase and you run into a problem:

The arrow was falling by the man...

you're adding a location, not an agent:

Passive? No. Not in this instance.

[smellycat6464]

Thank you so much this was very informative. I love learning about grammar, and had no idea what a grammatical aspect is, I'm going to research that right now, thank you

[smellycat6464]

thanks so much, I think I now understand aspects, but would you mind if I followed up with another question, this time about aspects.

I have discovered that in my writing, I prefer the simple aspect (if I worded that properly) because I don't enjoy the extra wordiness that I'm already prone to, like "I have been eating" sounds something quite unnatural to say.

I know that *usually* active is preferred over passive voice in writing, but can this be extended to aspects? are there certain aspects of a verb that can be considered undesirable? Is there a preference, or should I just whichever aspect I must use, leave it at that, and move on haha
thank you!

[Maryn]

I'm not Fallen, but I might be able to answer.

The most straightforward verb usages are both active, the subject of the sentence performing the verb's action, in present tense or in past tense.

I eat bread. The waitress gives us water.
I ate bread. The waitress gave us water.

More complex and less straightforward are the progressive verb tenses, in which an activity is ongoing while another activity takes place. For me, the progressives serve as background to the sentence's main action.

I am eating bread when the waitress gives us water.
I was eating bread when he waitress gave us water.

Passive, of course, just adds a further complexity without purpose.

The bread is eaten by me. The water is given to us by the waitress.
The bread was eaten by me. The water was given to us by the waitress.

Making it both passive and progressive for no reason just makes it messy, IMO.

The bread is being eaten by me when the water is given to us by the waitress.
The bread was being eaten by me when the water was given to us by the waitress.

(Ugh, huh?)

Maryn, hoping this helps a bit

[smellycat6464]

you helped, thank you. so when possible, make the aspect simple! thank you

[Bufty]

Hi smellycat.

If you genuinely wish to write, I do hope you are not unintentionally drowning yourself in the quicksand swamp of 'How do I write?' instead of striding along the highway of actually writing.

Just a thought, friend.

Originally Posted by smellycat6464

you helped, thank you. so when possible, make the aspect simple! thank you

[blacbird]

I can think of three major justifications for using a passive construction:

1. In dialogue. People often speak in passive constructions, and you can get away with pretty much any grammatical conflabulation in dialogue.

2. When the object of the sentence is the focus of the narrative. In my composition classes I use the example of John Lennon's assassination. If you are writing about John Lennon, it's reasonable to include a passive sentence that reads "John Lennon was assassinated by Mark Chapman." But if you're writing about Chapman, you'd certainly want to use the active construction: "Mark Chapman assassinated John Lennon."

Note that the passive construction takes seven words, the active one only five. Thereby illustrating one of the objections to passive construction: wordiness, which equals flab, which sucks energy out of the narration.

3. Once in a while, in a very great while I'd say, for rhythm and flow of prose. But not very often.

The major problem with passive construction is much like the major problem with adverbs: Overuse. Both of which are common sins among inexperienced writers.

caw

[Fallen]

Maryn's spot on as usual so I'll just try and complement her 'active approach with where aspect can work with tense.

Tense tells you when something happened, aspect tells you whether that 'tense action' has finished, or whether it's still ongoing.

She ran v she was running (in the second, although it is still past tense, the 'running' is still ongoing at that time)

She had been running (still past tense, but here the running was completed.)

She should have been running (past tense, but the running hasn't occured or happened for some reason (this one uses a 'modal' verb 'should' to add the 'obligation' to the tense and (perfect/progressive)aspect

As to when you might need aspect in fiction:

The man had been here before. Many times. Somewhere in his drawer back home, the penknife he'd used to scratch his name into 'his' metal box sat beneath all his neat rows of socks and boxers. Possession habits were hard to break, so to was the need to bolt, hide, find a box and just close the lid on life.

Not the best example, but... *shrugs*

And bufty is right, don't let yourself become bogged down too much with the terms. Enjoy yourself.

[smellycat6464]

thanks so much for the responses! and I really needed to hear that, too, because I know I have a tendency to get carried away with detail, which is has its place in revisions, not writing the first draft. Both of you are so right.

I'm so grateful for these forums

[ComicBent]

1. Avoid the passive voice whenever you can, in particular the *passive + by* construction.
2. The progressive tense is fine to use. If you are a native speaker of English, you already know how to use it. Do not agonize over whether it is okay or not.
3. If you are already grammatically challenged, learn about tense and voice, and forget aspect. Just use the progressive in a way that sounds natural to you. Aspect is a linguistic concept that has no real application outside of grammatical classification. It is like imaginary numbers in math. When was the last time that you used the square root of -1 in managing your business accounts or figuring your taxes?

[Fallen]

Originally Posted by ComicBent

Aspect is a linguistic concept that has no real application outside of grammatical classification.

progressive tense

I'm not going to beat about the bush and say something's called a spade when it has the shape of a spoon.

The op wanted to do their own research, hats off to them for that; aspect is what this verb variant is called, and it's the best 'classification' by which to learn. Anything else and it wastes their time.

[Medievalist]

Originally Posted by ComicBent

Aspect is a linguistic concept that has no real application outside of grammatical classification.

It is however exceedingly helpful to know what something is called so you can understand your editor's helpful note explaining that you've used the correct tense but not the correct aspect.

And yes, editors do leave notes like that.

[F.E.]

Originally Posted by smellycat6464

I consider myself pretty skilled at detecting passive voice and knowing when to use it.

However I was reading, and I came across the phrase, "The arrows were falling."

For some reason, this sentence triggers passive to me, because I was taught in school that *usually* passive construction is "be+verbed," and that "by" is often a good indicator.

However, is this just simply the imperfect (if that's the right tense I'm thinking of) and active. Because a passive construction would be "The arrows were felled by their archers." Or something along those lines....I don't even know if "felled" is a verb haha, maybe "loosed" is better, not that it makes the sentence any good.

I know a "be" verb doesn't *always* indicate passive voice, and I have a feeling this is one of those scenarios where it is active and uses "to be" but I can't think of a passive sentence without "to be" in it.

Sorry for the finicky question, but it's just been in the back of my mind

One easy, and pragmatic way, to sorta verify for yourself if a clause is passive is to see if you can construct an equivalent (more or less, often less ) active voice version of it. (If you can't create an active voice version of it, then the original version probably wasn't passive to begin with.)

E.g. #1

The arrows were shot by the archers. (passive?)

Yup, it is passive.

The archers shot the arrows. (active)

.
Also
E.g. #2

The arrows were shot. (passive?)

Yup, it is passive.

Somebody shot the arrows. (active)

That "trick" will often help you out; it'll work 99.8 percent of the time. (There might be a few exceptions. )

(Most grammars will recognize a clause as being passive if it uses a construction that involves a form of the BE verb + a past-participle form of a verb.)

[F.E.]

If your grammar book doesn't show you practical examples of where the passive (voice) is more appropriate than its active voice alternative, w.r.t. the surrounding context and due to old vs new info, then that grammar book probably isn't very good.

Passive voice constructions are powerful tools for a writer. They help the writer present the information (to the reader) in the order that he wants, and lets the writer place bits of info in those slots of a sentence that will create the effects that he wants.

[Summerwriter]

It is odd. I try to write active, and still my readers doom it to be passive. I mean it is not the by thing. It's something else. But it probably won't change. I'm Finnish, not English, so English is not my first language.

[smellycat6464]

thanks again to all the other posters. I love hearing other peoples stories and little tricks, they definitely help