Background
I guess all good blog posts start off with a personal anecdote. Which makes sense, kind of. After all, nothing says 'well-thought-through, empirically backed, surely-not-just-individual-preference take here' quite like an argument from personal experience.
So here we go.
Some years ago—never mind how long precisely *wink, wink* *nudge, nudge*—I was in the middle of critiquing a piece on this very website when I discovered something. Cue ominous thunder and maniacal laughter.
While my discovery didn't quite warrant an ecstatic exclamation of "It's alive!", it did, in that moment, feel rather significant. For I had stumbled upon the concept of information density. Awakened by my fellow author's proclivity for the usage of the 'subject was adjective' construction in their descriptions, the concept quickly matured into a half-baked idea, which I, blindsided by its perceived brilliance, spent the next hour meticulously explaining to them.
Needless to say, the five-hundred-plus-word-barf-on-the-page comment wasn't well received and my otherwise flawless (yeah right, get a hold of yourself) crit evaluation tanked that month because of it. Figures.
But that whole debacle got me thinking. Why hadn't I heard anyone in the writing community talk of this? Turns out, I hadn't looked well enough. Apparently, what I had discovered, or more like stumbled upon, was the rather extensive topic of Lexical Density.
Ok, I thought, as I scrolled through the Wiki page, so this thing has a clinical name, fancy terms and even a formula. You know, for the math-inclined ones among us. My only issue with it was that it didn't seem to prescribe anything. It didn't give rules or tips. It just, kind of, measured stuff.
'BOO! Boring', I yelled at my computer screen.
This stuff was quite powerful. Surely one could use it to create a style guide for creative writing. Right?
So I got working.
The Case Against 'Was'
The cornerstone of my writing guide was a fairly basic premise. Namely, more information density is generally preferable to less information density.
Armed with this particular nugget of wisdom I decided to tackle my old nemesis. The 'subject was adjective' construction.
So, is there really something wrong with writing 'The castle was white'?
Let's analyse the sentence word for word. Disclaimer before you close out of this and start running for the woods: I won't be using any fancy terminology.
The — Necessitated by grammar. Conveys the idea that we are speaking of a particular thing rather than all things.
Castle — Key part of the sentence. Serves as the anchor to which the rest of the words connect.
White — Modifier. Adds some detail/ information not conveyed by the rest of the sentence.
Was — Coveys two pieces of information. Firstly, the idea of existence, and secondly the temporal aspect.
Alright, now what's so bad about 'was' in the example? At first glance, it appears to be doing stuff. Even twice as much stuff as any of the other words in the sentence. Does that mean 'was' is off the hook? Maybe it's 'the' that should be worried.
"Not so fast!" I say as I jump into frame.
The issue is that we are considering this in a vacuum. When such a sentence appears in a book it is always accompanied by... well obviously the rest of the book. And what that rest creates is context. Context that provides us with things like temporal and spatial references. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this.
Within the context of a book, it is assumed that the events portrayed in a scene happen as the reader is reading them regardless of the tense used, unless specifically stated otherwise. We may accept that the story "has happened" but we experience it as it unfolds in front of us. So, assuming we're writing in past tense, the actual temporal aspect of 'was' in the sentence gets lost. Or it can be presumed. If we actually wanted to imprint the meaning of 'something in the past' we would need to shift tenses back and say 'The castle had been white'. In this sense, 'was' becomes... almost vestigial.
The second function of 'was', namely the idea of existence fares even worse. When a person reads, they know that what they are reading is a description. By definition, existence/being is a prerequisite. You'll never read the description of the vase in the corner which the author never imagined cause, you know, it doesn't exist.
When I read something like 'The castle was white' I want to exclaim, "No shit it was. How could it not be?" In fact, the usage of 'was' in the example sentence paradoxically only makes sense if we use a negation. 'The castle wasn't white.' "Oh, what was it then?"
Tying it back in
It turns out the premise of 'more information density is generally preferable' gets applied almost ubiquitously. In fact, it's so fundamental that I dare you to show me a creative writing tip that cannot be reduced to it.
Let's do some of the highlights:
Show don't tell — Telling is the least information-dense way of conveying a concept. You'll get the jist of it but none of the details. That, by the way, is also why it ends up being so much shorter than showing.
Strong vs. Weak verbs — We call a verb weak when it needs crutches (other words) to convey the same meaning a strong verb conveys. (Walked away quickly vs. Bolted away) A classical case of low information density and the reason why we get told to avoid it.
Concrete vs. Abstract language — Some words, 'lake, dog, car' are too general. In their attempt to cover a large concept they inevitably fall into the trap of low information density. Think about how they compare to 'Pug, Ferrari, etc.'
Short and to the point — Stephen King's famous 10% rule comes to mind here. Why would reducing the length of your work by a tenth be something to strive for? Information density.
Character development through dialogue — The idea being to use the "space" we dedicate for dialogue not only to convey what is being said but also who the person is that is saying it. Why? I think we all know the answer by now.
So don't use 'was'. It's lazy, bad writing and it's probably the reason why you get all those rejection letters. <—— See how I attempted to stir up some drama there, at the end. I hear good blogs do that too.
PS. I really wanted to end the post on 'Don't use 'was', be dense. Information dense that is.' but I didn't think the joke was very good.