By Robert Morales —
Verbs can be active or passive. Typically, we choose active verbs (active tense) because it makes more sense.
The passive voice is generally discouraged because it tends to be lazy.
Here's a few examples:
Active: Joe threw the football to Eric.
Passive: The ball was thrown by Joe to Eric.
Active: Rita cooked all the meals.
Passive: The meals were all cooked by Rita.
The passive voice can be used at liberty when writing dialogue because the dialogue is depicting how a person speaks. Otherwise, stay away from the passive voice. If an action is done “by” someone, you can be sure it's passive.
