Art uses different kinds of space. Visual art uses the area of a canvas, paper, or screen. Music uses the “space” of time. Cinema combines the moment-by-moment experience of music with the visual experience of art. Sculpture and dance use full three-dimensional space, one still and the other moving.
The concept of density shows how writers fill their space. In architecture, density refers how many buildings and people fill a given space. Old cities like Rome pack together people and buildings. Towns like Amherst, Massachusetts, have an open look and feel.
Denser communities pack more people and activities into a given space. They are, therefore, harder to understand, at least right away. You have to work harder to get to know, say, a block in Rome than a block in Amherst
Writing also has different degrees of density. Sparse writing presents ideas simply, without making too many demands on the reader’s attention. Dense writing, on the other hand, packs lots of different ideas into a small space. Unless you know your way around the subject, like an urbanite knows her way around the city, dense writing can be too hard to understand.
Dense writing uses more “content” words, that is, specific, specialized terms. In their study Writing Science, M.A.K. Halliday and J.R. Martin detail the density of five sentences. Look at these sentences below (content words are italicized, and density scores follow the sentences):
But we never did anything very much in science in our school. [2]
My father used to tell me about a singer in his village. [4]
A parallelogram is a four-sided figure with its opposite sides parallel. [6]
The atomic nucleus absorbs and emits energy in quanta, or discrete units. [8]
Griffith’s energy balance approach to strength and fracture also suggested the importance of surface chemistry in the mechanical behavior of brittle materials. [13]
We read the first few sentences easily. But the later sentences come hard. If we know only six of the eight content words in the fourth sentence, we might not understand the point. Even when we know all eight terms, we might still struggle. It’s just too much to process. Packing so many technical words so close together makes it hard to relate the ideas.
Distracted by bunches of complex words, readers struggle to process passages. So always look for the simplest word. When you need to use a technical word, define it. If you define it well, it becomes simple for your reader. Take the term atomic nucleus. Until we reached high school physics, that was a complex, abstract term for most of us; afterward, it became simple.
The master: John McPhee
My favorite model of simple (but not simplistic) writing on technical topics comes from John McPhee. Take a look at this passage from The Curve of Binding Energy, McPhee’s book about nuclear proliferation:
The material that destroyed Hiroshima was uranium-235. Some 60 kilograms of it were in the bomb. The uranium was in metallic form. Sixty kilograms, a hundred and 32 pounds, of uranium would be about the size of a football, for the metal is compact—almost twice as dense as lead. As a cube, 60 kilograms would be slightly less than six inches on a side. U-235 is radioactive, but not intensely so. You could hold some in your lap for a month and not suffer any effects. Like any heavy metal, it is poisonous if you eat enough of it. Its critical mass—the point at which it will start a chain reaction until a great deal of energy has been released—varies widely, depending on what surrounds it.
On and on McPhee goes, describing the most complex topics with simple little words.
McPhee he shows us what we don’t know by referencing what we do know. To explain density, he makes references to lead and footballs. To describe radioactivity, he reassures us that we can hold on our laps, without any danger, the same amount of U-235 that comprised the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Here, McPhee’s In Suspect Terrain explains the geologic foundations of New York’s skyscraping buildings:
The towers of midtown, as one might imagine, were emplaced in substantial rock, … that once had been heated near the point of melting, had recrystallized, had been heated again, had recrystallized, and, while not particularly competent, was more than adequate to hold up those buildings. Most important, it was right at the surface. You could see it, in all its micaceous glitter, shining like silver in the outcrops of Central Park. Four hundred and 50 million years in age, it was called Manhattan schist. All through midtown, it was at or near the surface, but in the region south of Thirtieth Street it began to fall away, and at Washington Square it descended abruptly. The whole saddle between midtown and Wall Street would be underwater, were it not filled with many tens of fathoms of glacial till.
McPhee sprinkles technical terms in this passage, but not so many that you need to scramble to a dictionary. Anyone with a high school education can understand this erudite, rich writing.
McPhee uses contrast to show New York’s in its deep hard geologic foundation:
New York grew high on the advantage of its hard rock, and, New York being what it is, cities all over the world have attempted to resemble it. The skyline of nuclear Houston, for example, is a simulacrum of Manhattan’s. Houston rests on 12,000 feet of montmorillonitic clay, a substance that, when moist, turns into mobile jelly. After taking so much money out of the ground, the oil companies of Houston have put hundreds of millions back in. Houston is the world’s foremost city in fat basements. Its tall buildings are magnified duckpins, bobbing in their own mire.
Because his words are mostly simple, McPhee can offer unfamiliar terms (like montmorillonitic) when he wants to offer precision. Like all great writers, McPhee offers value to both specialists and lay readers. Commonplace reference points, offered one by one, help us to understand less familiar ideas.
Above all else, McPhee shows patience, so he can introduce complex ideas without overwhelming the reader. McPhee is happy to take as long as he needs to expand our vocabulary as much as we need to follow his story.
Make It Physical
Picture a child curled up on a window bench reading a book. Or a commuter as she grabs a strap on a subway while reading a newspaper. Or a college student peering into a computer screen to read a blog or document.
Reading looks passive, but really it’s physical. Our job, as writers, is to provide enough energy—and enough emotion—to keep the reader physically engaged.
Specific, precise words help us to get the reader physically involved. Abstract words create a distance between the subject and the reader. If I read about the “collateral damage” of war, I will approach the subject with detachment; if I read about guerrillas or drones killing innocent people, I get a sense of the violence and feel empathy for the victims. If I hear abstract arguments about global warming, I feel detached; if I see the human tragedies of Hurricane Katrina, I respond emotionally.
But emotions don’t just prompt us to care. They also prompt us to think.
Consider debates about diet. When we think of “meat” or “poultry” abstractly—as just another commodity in the grocer’s refrigerator—we think shallowly. But when we think about how chicken farms operate—when we see the animals confined in small spaces without light, pumped with hormones, made so fat they cannot even stand—we develop a deeper understanding of the issue.
When possible, then avoid abstractions. Use words that touch people physically and emotionally. Use words that connect the reader with the subject, vividly and intimately. Then you’ll be able to combine the best of both heart and mind.
For more posts on writing, visit the Elements of Writing Blog. Check out the posts on Storytelling, Writing Mechanics, Analysis, and Writers on Writing.