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Passive voice

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Peter Ahlstrom:

--- Quote from: fireflyz on April 04, 2011, 12:03:10 PM ---For example, if the action is immediate, the character is in the middle of putting a puzzle together and having difficulty and the writer chooses past imperfect...to me that is passive.  It's not immediate and it doesn't read well.  The same for the other two forms.
--- End quote ---
It may be poor writing (depends on context), but it's not passive voice. By definition.

Wolle:
I'm still trying to get my head around this.

What about sentences that have "it" as a subject, when "it" isn't really referring to anything concrete? In other words, is this correct:

PASSIVE - "It was raining"

ACTIVE - "The rain fell."

Juan Dolor:
Man, that's a tough one.  I think both of those are fine, but I'm no grammarian.

Peter Ahlstrom:
It was raining is still active. It's past progressive.

But "the rain fell" might be better to use depending on what mood you want in a particular scene. Except it's boring. If you want descriptive writing you'd use a different verb. If you just want something transparent, "it was raining" would generally work fine.

fardawg:
Well, passive aggressive is defined as "a type of behavior or personality characterized by indirect resistance to the demands of others and an avoidance of direct confrontation..." Oh...Passive Voice! My bad.

Seriously, grammar do is had be hards. 

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