Be passive no more
Using the passive voice can leave you accused of laziness, but while you can use it to great effect, you might even be blamed for introducing bias. It's a tricky customer.
The passive voice often gets the rough end of the grammar stick.
George Orwell was strict about its use: “Never use the passive where you can use the active.”
But it isn’t always this simple.
In fiction writing, the active voice is preferable, but sometimes the passive can work well for contrast or effect, or simply out of necessity. For example:
The man was found murdered.
Unless you know who murdered the man, or who found him, the sentence has to be in the passive voice.
In non-fiction writing, primarily scientific, medical or business texts, the passive often cannot be avoided. However, its use in news journalism is where it can get controversial.
The New York Times has been criticised in recent weeks for its seemingly biased passive voice statements. The newspaper posted a tweet that was discussed by many:
Who shot the photographer? And then compare that with the next statement: protestors struck a journalist. So, the protestors did something, but the shooting just happened to the photographer? Perhaps the perpetrator wasn’t known?
But then look at the final statement: the reporter was hit (passive) by the pepper ball. Even though the sentence does go on to say that a police officer did it, the damage has already done. That initial use of the passive voice has lessened the impact of the statement and imposed a bias to the statement.
You can also see the clear bias in the frequent use of the passive voice phrase “George Floyd was killed by police officers” compared with the active “Police officers killed George Floyd”.
The passive voice can undoubtedly have a meaningful impact.
George Orwell was correct in advising against it wherever possible.
If you are worried that you are using the passive voice too often and want to liven up your writing, one easy way to help yourself out is by using the Hemingway Editor. I’ve mentioned this website before, but that’s because I think it is a brilliant, free tool. Not only does it identify all uses of the passive voice, but it also spots Ernest Hemingway’s other bugbear: the overuse of adverbs.
What I’ve read and enjoyed recently
My reading recently has returned to its usual eclectic (odd?) mix of very specific non-fiction (financial books, at the moment), classics and new novels.
The Love Square falls into that last category of new. I read it thanks to a galley copy provided via Net Galley. It’s billed as “a fun and fast-paced romantic comedy”, but it wasn’t for me. I enjoyed her previous novel, Our Stop; it was a light, fluffy, will-they-or-won’t-they romance read. But this latest irritated me - I couldn’t relate to any of the characters, all of whom bordered on being caricatures. And there was a ridiculous sub-plot involving Lizzo that made me so cross.
(Also, I wanted to put this in here, after one of my cousins said to me a couple of weeks ago:
“I reckon you don’t read any trashy books. I bet you never stoop to that level.”
Hahaha…)
On the classics front, I read Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood, and that I loved. To add to the sense of atmosphere that the book created, we’ve also been steaming through episodes of Babylon Berlin, also set in Weimar Republic Germany. Alles gut.
Three non-fiction books that I’ve enjoyed are James Clear’s Atomic Habits, Jill Lepore’s These Truths: A History of the United States, and Ronan Farrow’s Catch And Kill. The first was fascinating and the other two opened my eyes. Let’s say that I learned a lot (of very different things) from all three.
I’m currently juggling between Opium and Absinthe by Lydia Kang, Ibram X Kendi’s How To Be An Antiracist, The Romanovs by Simon Sebag-Montefiore (another one linked to a recent series we loved: The Great), Rich People Problems - the last of Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians trilogy.
This has been another month of me not writing much, but this time I do have an excuse. I’ve been busy working on other projects - mainly editing and translating - and that has left me little time to work on my own projects. I’m hoping to get inspired by our “hemester” (the newly coined Swedish word for holidaying at home rather than abroad) later this month.
I’ve done my usual Swedish translation for one of my regular financial clients, a large Danish translation for another financial client, and I’ve been editing a novel written by a former colleague. This last project is so exciting. We have a good collaboration going and I’m relishing trying something so far beyond from my usual work of financial jargon.
As always, take care of yourself and others.
Kat