Perhaps this isn't a common experience, but I certainly grew up hearing from myriad sources, ranging from teachers to inspirational-quotes-for-writers type lists* that anyone wishing to write effectively absolutely must avoid the passive voice. Scratch out all your to-be's, forget about "was". Such mainstays of the English language will doom your style to a lifetime of stodgy mediocrity without hope of respite!
Of course, it's not so simple as that. Teachers, I have come to believe, instil this message in a desperate last gamble to get recalcitrant students to actually think about writing rather than doing the bare minimum so they can move on to whatever else catches their interest. Despite my own passion for language, I succumbed to this just as often as any jock or hardcore gamer. Love writing? Sure! Love writing for English class? If you believe that, I've got a unicorn to sell you.
I can't blame them for that. It's ridiculously easy to succumb to temptation and write the same basic sentence structure over and over, and, technically, it isn't wrong; it expresses a coherent thought in a properly structured manner that allows for easy interpretation. However, it's boring. Every sentence sounds the same. It's the verbal equivalent of one of those cookie-cutter suburbs where every single house is exactly like every other house, except maybe mirrored or painted a different colour. Functional, sure - interesting, no. The viewer rapidly loses interest.
If the viewer is, say, a teacher, and can't just stop reading, they soon find themselves under the influence of a rising urge to leap out a window to escape the mind-numbing boredom. It's not just that the sentences are all alike; it's that -and this is where the writerly-advice people who aren't teachers step in - that likeness arises from a structure that sets the reader back a pace.
It's important, here, to reflect upon the fact that names (usually) signify something about the object or concept named. Sentences like "the car was washed by Jason and his little sister" and "the moors were silvery green shaded with purple sage, stretching into the distance until rising fog obscured them" force the reader to take a step back. In other words, they make you take a passive role. You're the observer. You have to take time to think about the subject of the sentence, rather than the action - the sentence isn't about Jason and his sister washing the car. It's about the car.
The crux of the matter is that passive voice isn't bad. It's passive. And sometimes that's okay. Despite the Western world's focus on constantly running around doing things, it's healthy to take time to look at the scenery, sit and watch the rain, or otherwise just be. Similarly, in writing, it doesn't have to be all action, all the time. That starts to sound exactly the same too, and action loses its excitement. Also, some sentences just work better in passive voice.
It's the whole verbal contortionism thing. If you have to convolute that poor sentence into some unholy pretzel of words to avoid the passive voice, then please don't bother. Otherwise, use your discretion. If you want to slow the pace, set a scene, create a peaceful mood, feel free to use the passive voice, not to the exclusion of all else, but certainly not solely as a last resort if there's no other way to make the sentence work. Conversely, if you're aiming to speed up the writing, build tension, or write a fast-paced action scene...yeah, go ahead and avoid the passive voice as much as possible.
* For greater authenticity, insert the expletive of your choice.
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