Verb displacement


Verb displacement as it relates to prose, is a technique used to impart a lyrical or poetic feel to a phrase, sentence, or paragraph. This technique finds particular expression in minimalist literature.
Specifically, verb displacement involves only those verbs that can be displaced by the word "is" or its past tense "was." For instance, in this excerpt from the novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, instead of writing "He died in April," Ernest Hemingway displaces the verb "died" with "is," and thereby creates a more lyrical effect:

Origins

The term as it relates to prose in literature was first introduced in 2011 by Tom Heehler, author of The Well-Spoken Thesaurus, to describe one of the ways in which minimalist writers are able—consciously or otherwise—to enhance simple language without increasing complexity.