Grammar Girl: Active vs. Passive voice

This semester, if I wanted to get my students looking itchy and just a little bit scared, all I had to do was mention passive voice. Most of them just didn't get it - even after I made up a little passive/active man dance (you try keeping undergrads's attention for 90 minutes... it tends to make you kind of crazy).

I got frustrated by how many of them STILL didn't get it come exam time--what about the dance?? But I, too, remember struggling with passive voice when I was their age. It's not always an easy one to spot, and an even wilier one to try and really understand. So here, my attempt to explain the difference between active and passive voice (and why you should care).

So what do I mean by 'voice', anyway? We're talking about a grammatical category that indicates the relationship between the subject (agent) of your sentence and your verb (action). If you've got an agent carrying out an action in your sentence, then you're using active voice. Verbs are our language's 'doing' words: when an agent in performing what you're describing in your verb, then you're using active voice. If the action of the sentence is happening TO your subject, then you've got passive voice.

Now, for my running man example (minus the dance): when I think of active voice, I think of a man out for a jog at 5AM. He's being ACTIVE - going out and actively carrying out an activity. In order for a sentence to use active voice, it has to do the same thing. Your agent (subject) has to be the one carrying out your verb. For example:

I (agent/subject) once created (action/verb) a fake wedding invitation marrying my brother to one of my friends. (true story - don't ask)

This is what the passive version of this sentence would look like with the subject of the sentence being acted upon.

A fake wedding invitation marrying my brother and one of my friends was created by me.

So we've got a difference in emphasis here. The active voice emphasizes the subject, and the passive voice emphasizes the object or receiver of the action. More examples:

Active: Hope bit her Dad in the leg.

Passive: Hope's Dad was bitten in the leg by Hope.

Active: Last night I dreamed about that hunky anesthesiologist from the show Offspring.

Passive: Last night the hunky doctor from the show Offpring was dreamed about by me.

So here's where my students' eyes start going fuzzy. Because, yes, these sentences are saying the same thing. But they are saying it in different ways, and that's why we care. The passive voice is more difficult fora reader to understand. It's wordier, more roundabout, and often puts space between the actor and action. Sometimes it puts the subject at the end of the sentence so that you don't know who is actually biting Dad's leg until just before the full stop, which can be really confusing. Sometimes the actor doesn't appear in the sentence at all. Passive voice makes for more garbled sentences and, 99% of the time, weaker prose. I mean look at the sentences above: which ones do you prefer? Which ones do you think are easier to read?

It's not that passive voice is always bad. Sometimes you don't want the emphasis to be put on the agent like, say, in a press release from a company that has spilled massive amounts of oil into the sea. They'll say something like "this oversight is regretted", instead of "we regret this oversight." They don't WANT their grammar to sharpen the obvious: that they've done something that people aren't going to be fans of. So it makes sense that they'd want to make themselves out as the object of the action rather than its agent: that's why you see passive voice in so many corporate and government documents. Sometimes the object is more important than the agent. This is the point in the lecture when I'd do my passive man dance, a creepy side-shuffle with jazz hands meant to symbolize someone who is side-stepping the action/blame.

When it comes to writing clearly, active voice is almost always the way you want to go. I've seen so many writers use passive voice without meaning to and then look distraught when they can't figure out how to make their sentence stronger. So when you're reading your work, ask yourself: is the subject of your sentence the one who is doing/has done/will do the action? If not, you're probably using passive voice. And you should probably revise for clarity.

An example from my work:

Passive: A step forward was taken, camera clutched between my hands.

Active: I took a step forward, camera clutched between my hands.

... better, right?

Put your money where your mouth is: would you pay to get into author events?

In an attempt to escape the pile of student papers waiting to be graded (they're staring at me judgmentally as I type), I stumbled upon an interesting book-related NY Times article. It's all about the fact that independent bookstores are starting to charge admission to author events. The article purports that indie bookstores are losing revenue to sites like Amazon as customers start to use their local bookseller as a glorified library: come in, put some titles on your iphone, then go home and get them cheaply on the web. Owners are worried that if they don't shift their business model and start thinking of new ways to bring in the cash, they'll be in (even more) serious trouble. I don't blame them.

And so, some bookstores are charging people to come to their many author events, and I can understand the logic. I went to a book launch the other night and enjoyed free wine and snacks, a series of readings by emerging authors, and a Q&A with an Australian writer. I didn't buy her book at the event and I felt pretty guilty about it. Why? Because one of my favorite bookstores just spent money to make sure I enjoyed myself and they got not a penny from me. Author events both large and small are a fun form of entertainment. I pay to go to live music gigs, outdoor concerts, comedy shows, etc., so I think that bookstores are perfectly within their rights to charge us.

A lot of bookstores are asking people to buy the featured book as a form of cover. I think this is the ideal solution, because it means that the store, the author, and the publisher are all winning out. But I don't think it's a practical solution, because a lot of people just can't afford to pay $32.00 to get into an event, even if it means walking away with a novel. Prices like that will turn away a lot of students, young professionals, single moms, pensioners, and tight asses the world over. It'll also discourage walk-ins who don't know the author but like the idea of sitting in for a read-along. Some would argue that won't make or break an event, but some of the artists I've come to love and loyally support are ones I discovered by accidentally walking in on one of their free events. As Anne Patchett points out, "those are your readers". Authors may not be able to afford scaring them away.

That said, I'd be happy to pay five or ten dollars for a few hours of books and conversation, especially if I'm not going to buy the featured book. It's a way to show my support for the event and for the indie that runs them. Don't get me wrong, I'd love author events to stay free. Wouldn't we all? But it irritates me to hear people bemoaning the fact that indie bookstores are a 'cultural center' and that it's bordering on blasphemous for them to slap a price tag on what are supposed to be community events. Well guess what? Bookstores are also a business. Sometimes, when we wax on about the book as cultural lifeboat, we forget about that.

I'm a big fan of having my cake and eating it, too (and making it myself so I can lick the bowl and spoon), but the reality here is pretty simple: if we don't find ways to support our local indies, then they are going to go away.

So what do you think? Would you pay admission to get into an author event?

Parallel Importation (Or: Why Are Books in Australia So Expensive?)

The high price of Australian books has baffled me since I first landed here. I can still remember my popped-eyed, open-mouthed dismay when I realized that the average price of a new, good quality paperback hovered around $32AUD. An A5-size, "cheap" trade paperback that would have cost me $14.95 in the U.S. cost me $23AUD. If you ask me, that seems a little bit outrageous. It's not that I don't think literature is worth a little extra. But when I had to say no to Tony Horwitz's new book ($60 in hardback), hop onto Amazon and order it from America (even with the shipping, it cost me less), I started getting a little angry. WHY in the world are books so expensive here?

You'd think after several Writing & Editing Masters-level courses and a lot of conversations with bookish friends, I'd get it. But it wasn't until I did some sleuthing on parallel import restriction (PIRs) that it all started falling into place. Parallel importation, as I understand it, is when a 'non-counterfeit' product is bought and brought into another country without the permission of the intellectual property owner. For example, most big magazines - for example, National Geographic - have individual branches in different countries that publish their own version of the mother product. For example, the U.S. publishes National Geographic, whereas Australia publishes its own version: National Geographic Australia. But some retailers will still import copies of the U.S. version and sell them, as well. Parallel import restrictions mean that Australian distributors can't buy a foreign (mother) version of a book if an Australian company has bought copyright and is already producing the book in Australia.

To look into the implications of PIRs I'll follow a particular book through the distribution process. Let's pretend that I just had a book published in the U.S. (Torn, let's say; it's good to be prepared). Foreign publishers will buy the rights to publish my book and will proceed to print and distribute it in their own country. In order for my book to be protected by PIRs, the Australian publisher who buys the rights needs to publish the 'Australian' copy of Torn within 30 days of its release in the U.S. and must have the capacity to reprint it within 90 days. If they don't, then Aussie retailers can buy Torn from an overseas market at a more competitive price and have it shipped in. These restrictions are meant to protect the Australian publishing industry, but a debate continues to rage about whether PIRs really do that, or whether they simply make book prices higher.

PIRs seem to mean a couple of things. First, it means that the Australian publishing industry is being protected. A free market without PIRs would mean that retailers could source books from overseas, which would inevitably undercut the industry at a local level. A lot of the profit from PIRs goes back to Australian authors and publishers, which is, of course, a wonderful thing. But it also means that PIRs help keep book prices in Australia high because they create a less competitive market. A recent study suggests that consumers in Australia are paying around 30% more for books than the rest of the world. Yikes. If Australia didn't have PIRs, then distributors could buy a shipment of books from another country on the cheap, bring them into Australia and sell them at a retail price somewhere between price A (the price they bought it for) and price B (standard Aussie pricing, including the GST). That kind of competition could mean lower prices for consumers - if local chains *ahemDymocks* could be persuaded to sell their books for less. But it could also devastate the Australian publishing industry.

I've heard a lot of Aussie authors get fairly upset about doing away with PIRs, and I can understand their worry. Many authors argue that chucking PIRs will silence Aussie voices both old and new. Because PIRs help ensure that Aussie publishers see the same kinds of profits from printing international favorites like Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series as they do from Aussie up-and-comers, they're still willing to take chances on local talent. Local author Kim Wilkins makes great points about the many potential pitfalls that might come of axing PIRs, including the 'Americanization' of the Aussie industry: cheap books imported (well, because they're cheap) from the U.S., with an American cover and American spelling, that means a lesser product for the consumer, a smaller royalty for the author, and a lot less business for Aussie publishing.

The Australia Library & Information Association (ALIA), not a favorite with Aussie authors these days, found that local writers WOULD miss out on a certain amount of money if PIRs were done away with. But they also maintain that the people making the most out of PIRs are international authors, who reap much higher returns than local talent. That means that much of the book buyer's money flows right through the fingers of the Australian economy and straight overseas into other markets. But not as much as they might if PIRs were axed. Because in order for their to be an Australian publishing industry, there has to be money to support it. Otherwise everyone suffers, from writers to publishers to consumers.

I'm not sure where all this sits with me. One point rings out as clear as coins hitting the bottom of an empty jar, and that's the 'propositions' that the productivity commission proposed to help support the industry if PIRs are abolished. Most of their recommendations circle around 'providing grant funding' for writers. Okay, grants are all well and good, but that's a pretty vague and frustrating solution. And why oh WHY is it that writers have to fight that hard to make a living? Writers should be allowed to make money for their craft, just like any other job. They shouldn't have to beg and plead for the funding to be able to do what they do, especially if the demand for their stories is there.

One thing seems certain: book prices are too high. I'm sorry, but $60 for a hardback? No wonder we can't get people to read. I can only imagine how many people (myself included) are using Amazon and Book Depo to get books at a better rate, which can't be all that great for local industry. It sounds to me like PIRs aren't working as well as they could for both consumer and author. That said, I think protecting the industry is incredibly important. I'd hate to see the U.S. and U.K. market, rubbing their hands together and cackling, waiting to eat the little Aussie publishing world alive if there was nothing in place to protect it - because that's exactly what would happen. Protecting and serving authors and publishers means placing a value on cultural integrity, which inevitably means better quality for consumers and more opportunities for people like me.