Now that's done, I must say it is not entirely untrue, so I need you grammarians to help me out. I have been told that I over use passive voice construction, and I know that I do. I'm trying to change.

Here's the problem, though I know the official definition of what is passive voice, I have trouble seeing it in my writing. So I turned back on that rule in my MS-Word grammar checker and it keeps popping up on sentences which don't seem to me like they are passive.

Don't get me started on how accurate or not Word's grammar check is, but since I have trouble seeing the problem, I distrust myself.

Example:

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He had been assigned to clean out the bakery that morning.

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This is from a place in my book where the action is currently taking place in the afternoon, therefore I am explaining something that was taking place in the past of the present time.

So, what am I asking for? (A) Is this passive voice? (B) Is there some other way of doing this that is more "active?"

If you were to make it active, you could write it this way:

His boss had assigned him to clean out the bakery that morning.

The thing is, it's okay to have this sentence be passive unless it's important to the story that the reader know for certain who exactly assigned him to clean out the bakery that morning. If it doesn't matter who assigned him the job, leave the sentence in its passive form.

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Now, that's repacing "he" with another subject altogether.

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Yes. In a passive sentence the subject did not perform the action that is described, passive voice describes things that were done to the subject. To rephrase out of passive, you must therefore either change the subject (as in the 'His boss' example) or restructure the sentence so that the verb is changed (as in 'he had the assignment to ...' examples).

To be honest, in this case, I think I prefer the passive.

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Past perfect will almost always be written passively.

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NO! NO! NO! NO!

What determines the passive voice is this: "the form of the verb which shows that its subject is not the agent performing the action to which the verb refers, but, rather, receives the action." In other words, does the subject of the sentence perform the action of the verb or receive the action of the verb? THAT'S IT!

"His boss had assigned John cleaning duty," is an ACTIVE sentence. The subject of the sentence, the boss, is performing the action of the verb.

"John had been assigend cleaning duty by his boss," is a PASSIVE sentence. The subject of the sentence, John, is receiving the action of the verb.

This is pretty basic stuff, people. If you don't know this, you certainly don't have the tools to write. Thus, it would behoove you to put your pen down for a fortnight and read a good freshman-level compostion text book, such as the Harbrace College Handbook (from which the above citation was taken).

My confusion comes from exactly the sort of books that good ole' Balthasar is advocating. They say how passive is "Bad" and active is "good." Yet, every active example given feels more stilted to me.

Also, if it is so basic, why are you having to argue with some of the better grammarians on the board?

From my admittedly limited perspective, JB's answer was the most useful to me. Every time I get flagged by Word for a passive construction, I really try and see if there is a way to rephrase that would make it active and still convey what I'm trying to say without degrading the clarity. Now I understand why I have been unsuccessful.

As Kathleen pointed out, "Passive isn't always evil." Having some passive sentences in a story that is mostly in active voice is fine.

To use your example:

He had been assigned to clean out the bakery that morning. He lifted the flamethrower to his shoulder and burned all the stale crusts of bread to ash. Whistling tunelessly, he started the ultra-vacuum, and in a matter of minutes he finished the job.

The first sentence is in passive voice, but the rest of the paragraph is active, so it doesn't really matter. If all (or even a substantial minority) of your sentences were passive, then you would have a problem:

He had been assigned to clean out the bakery that morning. The flamethrower was lifted to his shoulder and all the stale crusts of bread were burned to ash. His whistling was tuneless as the ultra-vacuum was started, and the job was finished in a matter of minutes.

I think you're on the right track, though, by not following Word's grammar-checker blindly. If rephrasing the sentence to be active doesn't make the sentence sound better, leave it in passive voice. As long as the passive sentences are few and far between, you don't have a problem.

Part of the problem is that the doer in a passive sentence may not even be in the sentence.
<The bell was rung.>
Passive. We don't know who rang the bell, but the bell didn't ring itself. This could have been written
<The bell was rung by Jim.>
but both are passive.

It can get trickier. When subjects are inanimate, a writer can jump to the conclusion that these subjects are of necessity being acted upon and the sentence must then be passive. Not so.
<The bell rang.>
Active.
The bell is doing the action of the verb, ie, ringing, even though commom sense tells you that the bell is inanimate and someone had to ring or program that bell to ring. But according to the construction of the sentence, the bell may as well be a human being.

We're not really concerned about the bellringer, per se, but about what the subject of the sentence as a concept is or isn't doing. In these sentences, "he" hadn't done the assigning and the first bell was being rung ("by whom" could easily have been a part of the sentence), so both of those are passive. The second bell was doing the ringing (adding "by whom" to the sentence wouldn't have worked). That sentence is active.

Now I wonder if this will merely confuse the issue, but I've spent too much time to delete it. If you can see the difference between the two bells and their ringing, you've got it, dude.

For example, one I found in my short story was "Her morning class had been cancelled,..." Obviously, her professor cancelled the morning class, but who really cares? It's implicit based on context, and the detail is of minimal importance to the scene.

So as long as we're talking about passive voice, which comes up a lot, let me ask this. Some peopl have suggested that passive is not always evil. How much is too much? The example I gave you was one of exactly three passive voice sentences in my story. Technically, all could be rephrased, and I might do that when I'm ready to go through and do a major edit, but is that too many for a decent length short story?

I am so sick of the whining attacks on BB's--so many are becoming useless places to find any info or offer it--all it turns into is a kindergarten argument--I'm right--so there.

UGH

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Fourth, the subject, either way you write the sentence, is is the boss, for he is directing the action. Any way you reform the sentence, cleaning duty is the direct object and John is the indirect object.

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The subject of the sentence is what influences whether the verb is singular or plural, and whether the verb is first-, second-, or third-person.

My boss gives me the assignment. ("My boss" is the subject of the sentence.)
My bosses give me the assignment. ("My bosses" is the subject of the sentence, so the verb is third-person plural instead of singular.)

I am given the assignment by my boss. ("I" is the subject of the sentence.)
I am given the assignment by my bosses. ("I" is the subject of the sentence. Even though "my bosses" is plural, the verb does not change because "my bosses" is not the subject of the sentence, even if they are directing the action.)

The assignment is given to me by my boss. ("The assignment" is the subject of the sentence.)
The assignment is given to us by my bosses. ("The assignment" is the subject of the sentence. Even though "us" and "my bosses" are plural, they are not the subject, so the verb remains singular.)
The assignments are given to me by my boss. ("The assignments" is the subject of the sentence. Since it is plural, the verb is plural, even though "me" and "my boss" are singular.)

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So as long as we're talking about passive voice, which comes up a lot, let me ask this. Some peopl have suggested that passive is not always evil. How much is too much? The example I gave you was one of exactly three passive voice sentences in my story. Technically, all could be rephrased, and I might do that when I'm ready to go through and do a major edit, but is that too many for a decent length short story?

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To me, that sounds like a fairly minimal use of passive voice. I think it would only be a problem if the sentences were close together, unclear, or awkward.

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When I'm writing I get into a flow. I don't actively think about grammar, I just write what sounds good at the time. Usually passive sounds weird, I never even consider it, but the few times it does come up there must be some reason I chose to word the sentence that way. Should I go against a flow?

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Balthasar is right about the basic definition of passive voice, but wrong about the more important statement, "If you don't know this, you certainly don't have the tools to write."

If your readers have difficulty with your use of passive voice, then you need to learn how to avoid it. Otherwise, it doesn't matter. True, almost all readers will have problems paying attention and identifying the actors if you use too much passive voice, but then again, that is what defines "too much" passive voice...when the readers start losing interest as a result of your overuse of passive.

Clarity is the issue. I rephrased the sentence as active voice, but didn't answer any of the questions that the original version left open. Obviously, there is no indication of who gave him the assignment. Also, there is no (solid) indication of whether he recieved the assignment that morning or the assignment was to clean out the bakery that morning. Actually, reinterpreting the line in active voice does sort of force an interpretation here, I had to choose between 'held' 'had' and 'got' for the verb.

BTW, Dave, I didn't know you were YOU!

Let it flow. Get it all out there on paper.

Then, go back, after it's had a chance to cool down, and look at it with The Editor on Your Shoulder.