What would happen if you used – gasp! – the passive voice in a sentence or two?
Good writing is about communication, not following “the rules.”
Worst case passive voice scenario: It doesn’t work so you do something you’ll have to do anyway. Namely, rewrite.
When Nathan Bransford offers writing or publishing advice, we listen…and advise y’all (especially prose writers) to do the same. Here’s the latest reason why.
by Nathan Bransford
Q. Has ‘Jeopardy’ damaged its integrity by considering its current executive producer for the hosting gig?
A. No, instead the show has blown itself into total annihilation by giving this butthead the job.
~munchman
Yer friendly neighborhood munchamaniac has been munching on some bad news that arrived at the munch launch pad yesterday, by which yrs truly means the 24th stupid, dumb, & sosososo aggravating rejection of my someday Oscar or Emmy or Bafta (but never Golden Globes ‘cuz screw them) winning script that shall be nameless (titleless?) for the moment, & has come to the conclusion that said rejection is the product of a conspiracy by the secret rulers of the TV & film writing universe, AKA the sons & daughters of Satan known as gatekeepers!
What else could a note like this mean:
Regular visitors to TVWriter™ know I spend a lot of time (some may say too much) writing about gearing your work toward its intended audience. The reason for that is this variation of an old philosophical conundrum:
“If a teleplay, screenplay, novel, or short story is written but never read or viewed, does it really exist?”
In my younger, more ambitious days, the answer to this question was a quick and usually angry shout: “HELL %^#@ing NO!”