At some point in their career, every writer has heard that they’re supposed to avoid the passive voice. People don’t want to read the passive voice. They want action! Don’t they?
To some extent, yes. Passive sentences tend to be longer than their active counterparts, and the sentence structure is often more complex, so passive voice is harder to read. It can tire the reader out pretty quickly.
But there are times when you’ll want to use the passive voice, which we’ll get into in just a minute. First, let’s take a look at what passive voice is – and what it isn’t.
Identifying passive voice
Figuring out what is and isn’t passive voice can be trickier than you think. If you want to get technical, in a passive sentence, the subject of the sentence is being acted on by the verb. So the subject isn’t performing any action itself.
If you want to get technical, in a passive sentence, the subject of the sentence is being acted on by the verb. So the subject isn’t performing any action itself.
In practical terms, that means most passive sentences have some form of the verb “to be” plus the past participle of another verb. For example, “Markets were surprised.”
Here’s where this gets tricky: Many people see some form of “to be” plus another verb and assume passive voice. That’s not right. For example, “The fridge was running” is a perfectly active sentence. The “fridge” is the subject of the sentence, and it’s performing an action (“running”).
The zombie rule
Luckily for writers everywhere, Rebecca Johnson came up with a fun way to identify passive voice. She calls it the zombie rule, and it’s frighteningly accurate. Rebecca says if you can insert “by zombies” after the verb, you have passive voice.
Let’s test this out on our two examples above. “Markets were surprised [by zombies].” Yes, that would be passive voice – and we can see how it would be surprising.
‘Markets were surprised [by zombies].’ Yes, that would be passive voice – and we can see how it would be surprising.
How about “The fridge was running [by zombies]”? Nope, that doesn’t work, because it’s not a passive sentence.
Try the zombie rule on a few examples of your own. It really works!
The case for passive voice
Although you shouldn’t overuse the passive voice, there are two times when it can be the right choice. First, when the person/thing being acted on is more important than the person/thing performing the action.
For example, “The business was founded in 1925.” In this sentence, we don’t care who founded the business. We care that it’s a solid, well-established business that has been around for 90 years.
Second, when you don’t know who/what is performing the action. For example, “The door was left open again.” In this case, you don’t know who left the door open, but you’re mentioning it because it’s a consistent problem that you want addressed.
You could make this sentence active by changing it to “Somebody left the door open again.” But if your intent is to inform and solve a problem, rather than sound accusatory and angry, passive voice is still the right choice.
And the case against it
If you’re writing sentence after sentence of passive voice because you think it will make your writing sound smarter or more formal, it won’t. What it will do is tire your audience out and make them look for something that’s easier to read.
If you’re writing sentence after sentence of passive voice because you think it will make your writing sound smarter or more formal, it won’t.
And don’t use passive voice to try to hide something, because your audience will know. For example, stay away from statements like “Mistakes were made. They are being rectified.” That’s not the same as using the passive voice because you don’t know who/what is performing the action. It’s an attempt to deflect responsibility. Be open and say, “We made mistakes. We’re working on fixing them.”
An experienced writer can help you sort through passive and active voice and make your content easier to read.