redneck@detnet.com (Redneck Gaijin) wrote:

               (c) Any form of the verb 'to be', especially 'was,' is
passive. Any use of 'have,' 'has,' or 'had' is also passive. Passive verb
sentences kill a story. Rewrite your sentences to replace them with active
verbs.

Um... I'm fairly sure that this isn't quite right.

Have, has, and had are used in the so-called perfect tenses. They may be
either active or passive. Examples:


Active: The year before, Ukyo had sent Ranma and Akane to the Cave of
Lost Love.

Passive: The year before, Ranma and Akane had been sent by Ukyo to the
Cave of Lost Love.


Now, you may well think that the use of perfect tenses is not a good
thing either, but technically, they're not (necessarily) passive.
Personally, I don't like to see long scenes written in these tenses, but
I find some use of them essential in order to indicate that an action
happened before the current point in the narrative -- wheras almost all
passive-voice verbs can be replaced by active ones.


Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics