More than likely, you’ve been told by your critique partner or another writer, “Your writing would be much tighter if you didn’t use so many passive phrases.” How many times have you read over your manuscript after being told that and wondered what are they talking about?
Well, wonder no more…
Verb Tenses are often the most confusing, so I thought I would post examples to help anyone who is interested to understand them better. Sometimes the parts of the different tenses appear to make a verb passive, but that isn’t always true. A passive phrase always contains a past participle (past tense verb). None of the examples below are passive until the section specifically illustrating passive tense.
Past tense: Something happened in the past.
Ex. Adonis flexed his biceps yesterday.
Future tense: Something will happen in the future. Consists of ‘shall’ or ‘will’ plus present participle (verb).
Ex. Adonis will flex his triceps tomorrow.
Present perfect tense: Something started in the past that has been completed or is still continuing.
Ex. Adonis has lifted weights.
Past perfect tense: Something that completed before another past action. Consists of ‘had’ plus a past participle.
Ex. Adonis had flexed his biceps before he flexed his triceps.
Future perfect tense: Something that will be completed before a certain time in the future. Consists of ‘shall have’ or ‘will have’ plus a past participle.
Ex. Adonis will have finished his workout by next Wednesday.
Present progressive tense: Something still in progress. Consists of ‘am’, ‘is,’ or ‘are’ plus a present participle.
Ex. Adonis is flexing his triceps.
Past progressive tense: Something in progress sometime in the past. Consists of ‘was’ or ‘were’ plus a present participle.
Ex. Adonis was flexing his biceps.
Future progressive tense: Something that will be in progress in the future. Consists of ‘shall be’ and ‘will be’ plus a present participle.
Ex. Adonis will be flexing his pectoral muscles.
Perfect progressive tenses: Same meaning as perfect tenses, but adds a progressive element giving a sense of continuous action. Consist of ‘has been’, ‘have been’, ‘had been’, shall have been’, and ‘will have been’ plus a present participle.
Examples:
Adonis has been lifting weights. (present perfect progressive)
Adonis had been lifting weights. (past perfect progressive)
Adonis will have been lifting weights. (future perfect progressive)
Passive tense: Consists of some part of the auxiliary verb to be plus a past participle.
Examples:
Adonis is expected to audition. (present passive)
Adonis was expected to audition. (past passive)
Adonis will be notified when to audition. (future passive)
Adonis has been chosen. (present perfect passive)
Adonis had been chosen. (past perfect passive)
Adonis will have been chosen. (future perfect passive)
Please note: Participles ending with “ing” are never passive. So if you’re ever told that a phrase is passive when the participle ends with an “ing”, send them to this article!
