Passive vs. Active

I hear lots of people saying that active voice is good, and passive (using words like "was" and "were") is bad. I agree, in some cases.

He ran!
He was running!

The second would look ridiculous in a chase scene. The first, not so much.

But there are situations that, in my opinion, do call for passive voice. Examples:
The girl’s eyes were bloodshot, her hair was tangled and matted, and she looked about ready to kill somebody.
He was not about to let that happen.
The poster was so covered with dust that it almost blended into the floor.

Am I missing something here? I have the impression that passive voice is fine when used to describe a state of being, rather than an action. Is that correct?

I don't think using "was" to describe something is technically passive voice (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, anyone). It's when you use a "was [verb]ing" construction a lot, instead of simply using the verb, that it becomes a problem.

In many descriptions you have no choice but to use "was", and that's perfectly fine. Watch out with the forms of "to be" when it comes to action, though.

Active: The boulder crushed Indiana Jones.
Passive: Indiana Jones was crushed by the boulder.

Active: Indiana cracked his whip.
Passive: The whip was cracked by Indiana.

The girl’s eyes were bloodshot, her hair was tangled and matted, and she looked about ready to kill somebody.

He was not about to let that happen.

These are both active, not passive. Having the word 'was' in there isn't enough to make it passive. We can recast the second one in the passive tense, though:

That was not about to be let happened.

or

That was not about to be let happened by him.


However:

The poster was so covered with dust that it almost blended into the floor.

This one is passive. To recast it in the active tense:

Dust covered the poster so that it almost blended into the floor.

As you can see, my example is more action-y than your one. In your original version, the poster is covered in dust, whereas in my version dust is covering the poster.

The example you gave wasn't passive voice. That was past tense (the exact tense escapes me, however). Passive voice is putting emphasis on the action, not the actor of the sentence.

This is active voice (past progressive): "Arthur was lifting the sword."

This is passive voice (simple past tense): "The sword was lifted."

In passive voice, the actor in the sentence, ie- the person/living being doing the action is removed. There is still a subject in the passive sentence (as in, it is still a complete sentence) but there is no living being doing the action.

Writing Gooder did an article about passive over active voice. Click here to read.

As for when to use passive over active, that's really up to you. I've been critizied a bit for using passive voice (by none other than Bicakzer) but it can be used well.

As for when to use passive over active, that's really up to you. I've been critizied a bit for using passive voice (by none other than Bicakzer) but it can be used well.

XD That is indeed so.

The difference between active/passive all depends, really, on what you want to emphasize. For example, it's more active to say "Napoleon conquered Europe", but if you want to emphasize Europe instead of Napoleon, then the "Europe was conquered by Napoleon". The less you can do it, the better, though.

More on the "was verbing", which I suppose isn't actually passive voice: use it more to describe an action that's been occuring for some time, but the more active form for something someone's doing at that moment (for me, it helps to think of the difference between imperfect and preterite forms in Spanish, but I don't know if you've had Spanish, so...). "He was reading" implies he's been sitting there reading for a while, while "he read" implies he zipped through it and got it done already.

Hope all this helps. ^^