[This message has been edited by philocinemas (edited November 09, 2008).]
I think it's an example of people critiquing style.
Skadder, very funny.
I think it's out of place to criticize "style" except where I think passages of style obscure what the writer is trying to say or what the reader can understand. Even then, I hesitate to do so.
Personally I prefer very understated prose, but there absolutely is room for difficult writing in modern literature.
The difficulty comes in making sure that the "purple" prose is adding to, not obscuring, the story. There's also the problem of markets and reader expectations. I love the rhythms of, say, Cormac McCarthy's prose, even in his most difficult works, but I probably wouldn't tolerate it in a short story; there's simply not enough time to get used to it and my commitment isn't there. Speculative fiction does demand that the focus of the story is upon the idea and thick prose can lead to the underdevelopment of an idea.
I still think the rule of making sure that you use the minimum amount of words to say what you have to say stands for "purple prose".
If you look at those who do difficult writing well, even the most convoluted passages would be difficult to write any other way. They're not "purple", they're evocative.
Cheers,
Nick
[This message has been edited by Nick T (edited November 09, 2008).]
You would argue that you are not writing purple prose: you've written vivid, beautiful and poetic prose...but not purple prose.
You'd argue that your prose is pleasing to some ears and not to others, just as the genres are pleasing to some and not others. Your sales will speak for themselves.
That said if you write prose that is poetic, clear and not overly garnished I may find myself enjoying it. However, to sustain that for a short story, let alone a novel, I doubt would be feasible or marketable.
When I say 'feasible', I mean I doubt I would continue to enjoy it for that length of time. I prefer the author to remain in the background while my imagination adds the poetry.
By all means write it, if that is what you like. Personally, I write actual poetry to get it out of my system. Then I write clear (I hope) and simple (I hope) prose.
Real artistry comes from understanding how words are used, and reaching for the most accurate and precise way of saying what you intend to say. Style comes from knowing how to use the words to convey a certain mood and atmosphere, or evoke a feeling with your words and sentences.
And people can feel it when you're trying too hard.
To be honest, I think it's difficult for any of us to give good advice without seeing a sample of your work. Even then, a small snippet (13 lines) might not be enough because it's taken out of context, but it might be worth posting something so we have more to go on.
I do not know if this is the right forum to present this, but I suppose KDW can just edit me if she determines it is not. Here are 13 of the lines in question:
She fumbled down two flights of steps to get to the bottom floor and plunged out into the cold city night. The street was desolate, and as she fled, the drooping lampposts seemed to languish in her despair. The chilling, unforgiving wind whispered accusations in her ears.
Fifteen minutes felt like an hour, but Meg found herself drawn back to the place where her life had ended – the park where, Ben, her five-year-old son had played that last time. She followed his steps as if they were her own, up and down the slide, over to the table to get the ball, and then out into the street. She bent down and hugged the cold black asphalt. It was a gesture of forfeit and of desire to embrace something other than the emptiness time had left her.
Imprecision in figurative meaning is probably the culprit that's drawn attention. In my experience, if figurative meaning isn't absolutely precise, it's off-putting.
"Fumbled" suggests dropping or juggling. Though earlier era usage of fumble meant handle clumsily or aimlessly, modern idiomatic usages associate fumbling with ball play.
"Drooping" suggests a hanging or inclined object, sinking gradually, depression and weakness, yet doesn't clearly show the physical orientation of the lampposts. It suggests they're leaning or hanging down and about to collapse.
"Languish" suggests weak or feeble, dispirited, an expression of grief or emotion appealing for sympathy. In my mind, a lamppost can't represent a dispirited state or an appeal for sympathy. The lamp lights might, but the lamppost is to my mind a rigid, structure.
The latter two terms are perhaps suitable for animate things, living objects. Whereas inanimate objects take on animacy in figurative contexts, it's difficult to perceive lampposts as drooping and in a state of languish when that goes contrary to the mute, dutiful, vigilant quality of animacy that lampposts personify. I can't perceive lampposts as dispirited or depressed; indifferent, yes. They light up the darkness regardless of their mood.
Consider whether a perfume can be arrogant, a cigar sweetly scented, a slice of stale white bread nervy and bold.
I dunno, myself. I like reading it (sometimes), and, when you get down to it, a lot of best-selling writers are as opaque and wordy as anybody in the past. (Stephen King comes to my mind.)
So write as wordy as seems right to you, and when you get advice about cutting your work, take it with a grain of salt and be prepared to discard it if the result doesn't suit you.
An aimless person might not fumble down stairs in a state of tragic melacholy. The soft consonant followed by a hard consonant of the word fumble, though, is a robust sounding verb. Stumbled isn't much clearer emotionally than fumbled. Staggered or lurched or tottered or reeled gets closer to what I think the intent is.
And rather than the lampposts drooping and in a state of languish, yes, a physical description might be best. A candy cane-shape suggests a Christmassy scene. The lamplights might be the objects Meg emotionally projects onto. Without knowing the time of the story's milieu, I'll project from today's commonplace metal halide lamps. Mercury vapor's funereal blue or sodium vapor's garrish orange offer emotional context. They also flicker and falter periodically.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited November 10, 2008).]
[This message has been edited by J (edited November 10, 2008).]
From your sample, here is my reaction as a reader: "drooping lampposts"... that doesn't conjure up a good description of a shape to me. To me, it conveys a texture, like wax or taffy candy, that is somewhat fluid and changing. It became a speedbump in my reading because I stopped and thought "What? This isn't a good metaphor because lampposts are solid, they don't droop!" The same with the expression: "She bent down and hugged the cold black asphalt." My visual image of bending down is to bend at the waist. Yet if she's going to hug the asphalt, wouldn't she have to lay down? Again, the words you selected are creating a barrier to my visualizing the scene, not an enhancement.
I think that's why you are getting criticism of being too descriptive. It's not that florid prose is bad in general, it's that you are not being selective enough as to when, and to what, you apply it.
One of the things I've learned that good prose gives the reader the tools to imagine the writer's world. It's OK to offer vivid description up to a certain point, then allow your reader to fill in some of the details in their mind. In essense, a good world builder trusts once you've put some key description in place, that the investment pays off as you go along and you can allow the reader to draw on that so you don't need to overdescribe every single scene.
I think if you go back and re-evaluate the works of the authors you cite, you'll find a lot of that. Key description in a few places, then the author relies on the reader's imagination to conjure up the details. As an example, Herbert only describes the scent of "spice" once (maybe twice), as I recall in Dune. Yet the inference to the scent permeates the book. After the initial description, a brief mention of it is all he needs to do to remind the reader of this key element in his world.
Like good acting, good writing shouldn't over-dramatize the little stuff. Save the dramatic stuff for the big scenes that need it most.
However, none of this seems to answer my initial question. What I am interpreting as "purple prose" is lavish description and ornate language. Some seem to consider figurative language as this, where others seem to consider overly detailed description or unusual language use or structure as a shade of purple. Is it the same as "overwritten"?
I will try and do a search on "purple prose" here and see what it reveals, but my initial perception is that everyone's perception is slightly different on this matter.
I have a considerable library of classic literature, if neither my initial inquiry nor my 13 lines are "purple", then maybe someone can reference something I might have - i.e. Lord of the Flies, Moby Dick, Dune, 1984, Dickens, Wells, Doyle, etc. I have the complete works of Poe; surely that has purple prose. If someone could give me a definitive example and then disect what is undesireable about it, I could more easily understand.
I continue to hear that it is a matter of the author's intrusion into the story. What was the turning point for this view? Hemmingway? I see the author's style in everything I read. If the author simply stated - Meg went quickly down the stairs and walked out into the street. The wind was cold, and she was very upset. She ran to the park and thought about her son's death. She collapsed onto the road where he was killed. - there is still style. I would think it was bland and poorly written, but style nonetheless.
I can make a story that is all dialogue, but the "how to's" suggest writing with as much narration as possible and only relying on dialogue where one must. Then show; don't tell.
Therefore I feel pigeonholed into writing bland narration that conveys that Meg goes down some steps, runs through the streets, and later talks to express her emotions. Arrgh! - (that's not my pirate voice)
I had pictured the lampposts as metal poles, curved at the top and then pointing back down toward the ground, like rows of sentinels looking downcast as she passed. Maybe I should just toss it.
I thought of "bent down" as on her knees and (then) lying down on the road. Obviously, I need to choose my words more carefully.
Thank you for the insight.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited November 10, 2008).]
I think you've answered your own question with your last post. What is being referred to by your critiques as "Purple Prose" isn't really. I think most of your crits are confusing the term "Purple Prose" with what's really here.
What I get from your posting is many of the same things Elan has said. It's not the prose that's the problem, it's how the describing words are used, and how they confuse and slow down the reader. As I said earlier, the purpose to any writing is to make the words disappear and let the story take over. Great prose helps that along, while confusing prose gets in the way of getting the reader there. I think that some rewording of this short snippet would take care of all of that. Remember, things that don't fit will trip up a reader, and if a story tries too hard to slam description and eloquence down a reader's throat, they'll notice.
My best suggestion is not to worry so much on individual words, and write your first draft however it comes out. If the writing is being forced, then likely it is being "overwritten". Then adjust here and there for things like the lamppost description.
No matter what, if your style meshes with the authors you mentioned in your original post, then by all means strive to do what they do. Just realize though, that if you are truly developing a style of your own, sooner or later you'll have to write like yourself, and no one else. And with that, who's to say that it won't be as good, or better even, and just as well received, as those same literary greats.
The above is not good prose and neither is 'the opposite' of purple prose as you suggest.
Your example contains adverbs and is full of telling. It is neither descriptive nor evocative.
I am going to split 'purple prose' in two.
1) Flowery prose
2) True Purple prose.
People trying to emulate the writers of old may attempt to achieve 1 but often fail and only manage 2.
Writing can be descriptive and evocative and be neither of the above. In fact, I would go so far as to say that both of the above are less likely to transport a reader to the place you want to take them than simple, clear prose.
Of course we are talking about extremes. Writers usually sit somewhere in between the two and one paragraph/sentence may be nearer to one extreme (describing a series of dunes may bring out a touch of the poet) and the next may not.
None of that matters to me, per se. What does matter is how to express this passage without saying - Meg did this and Meg did that. I want to convey the emotion without having to say - Meg thought this and Meg thought that. I want it to be real in every way, and yet the world is turning and changing and the ink and paper is stationary (that pun is for spitting on my purple prose). But seriously, what I'm trying to do is somehow infuse life into my writing. I'm just looking for ways to do that.
Simple prose is more like impressionism. A touch here, a touch there, and your mind fills in the blank. Too me, the picture created seems more real as it contains the qualities of a glance--the blurred image, the use of your mind to invent details left out. It is far more inclusive for the reader than a writer who supplies everything.
You don't need to say Meg did this, Meg did that, meg thought this, Meg thought that. You can evoke her state of mind by what she sees-- a wisps of fog drifting in the night air like long-forgotten ghosts; Empty derelict houses, abandoned cars, dead leaves, dark shadows and broken glass. She can wipe her tears away, see a forgotten child's toy in the gutter amid rotting twigs. The reader will pick up the imagery--it doesn't need to be overdone with flowery prose. It can be harsh yet simple--the way she feels it--like a knife being twisted in her heart. Or it can be soft and dark like someone drowning in grief and not caring--relishing the death they walk towards.
If you keep the feeling you want to achieve in your min as you write, then the words will come out right, provide you avoid flowery embellishments and lots of he did this, he did that.
Is there no non-flowery author you like? None that have moved you?
There are three basic learning steps I think all writers go through. The first is learning the English mechanics of writing. These are things like grammar, spelling, and punctuation. While it would be nice if the school system did a better job teaching that, what we get in schools often falls short of what we need to be successful as good fiction writers.
The second step is learning the story mechanics. These are things like character, plot, and setting. It also includes knowing when to "tell" instead of "show". I know, the opposite is what is pushed on beginning authors, but at some point, believe it or not, the opposite can also become true. At that point, stories ramble on with showing when the reader could care less, and more should be told. Orson Scott Card explains this better than I ever could in his books on writing, so I'll direct any questions there.
The final step is the hardest, and that's where I think you are now. Once all the mechanical things are figured out, its time to figure out what makes you different and unique from other authors. This is your "voice" and "style" and once you find it, I think you'll become confident enough not to worry about things like comments on "Purple Prose".
I know that I struggled for almost a year trying to figure out what I felt comfortable and confident with once I had passed through the first couple of steps. Now I write effortlessly, not having to think through my writing much at all, and I don't have to edit it much afterward either. The only things I really struggle with now are things that never go away like the specifics in each individual story.
The main point is that you just have to keep writing and pushing through. Sometimes you have to ignore comments that you don't agree with, even from people you respect. While that might seem hard to do, any author who is confident and has found their own "voice" will tell you it really isn't that hard. If you're not there yet, don't worry. Just keep writing and sooner or later it'll arrive.
Skadder, yes there are authors that I like that do not write in this style; Asimov, OSC and Michael Chabon all come to mind. However, I can't quite pinpoint Chabon's style - he varies. I like Tolkien who does the exact opposite - his narration was fairly straightforward and two the point and made the dialogue ornate at times.
Iuapc - yes, I am trying to find my style. I feel that I am fairly close to arriving. I had not written anything for many years (about 20) that had been read by others. I found this workshop oddly by fluke and decided to start writing to be read again. I have learned a great deal regarding style and presentation and I am still learning. This is why I am still a little unsure of myself. Most of what I have written has been received well enough, but these little comments about my writing being a little "purple" keep popping up. I really just wanted to know how big of an issue this was. Would it stop me from being published?
I am a perfectionist, and I very seldom have so much as a misplaced comma - at least not in a finished piece. I might occasionally have a mispelled word that Word doesn't catch, but rarely. I debate over whether to use "of" or "from" in sentences and go back and change them several times before continuing. This issue with the purpleness of my prose is making me second guess myself. The metaphors come about quite naturally for me (somewhat like puns and multiple meanings do), and now I am worrying whenever they arise.
quote:
Meg went quickly down the stairs and walked out into the street. The wind was cold, and she was very upset. She ran to the park and thought about her son's death. She collapsed onto the road where he was killed.
You know, it might be an interesting writing challenge to take those sentences and ask people to use their own style on them. They would not necessarily rewrite the exact sentences, but try to convey the information in their own sentences (and keep it to the 13-line limit, of course). I think I'd insert the words "near there" after "death," though, because that is part of the information that would need to be included.
The stairwell walls pressed in close around her. Meg fled downwards and threw herself against the door. She drew a deep breath as she stumbled into the street, but gagged on the grit and the fumes. The outlines of buildings loomed in the dark, indistinct and threatening. Meg fled again. She ran, heedless of direction, slowing only when she realized where she was heading. There.
The tall slide was barely visible in the misty dark. There. Ben had climbed all the way up, then come down, headfirst. The picnic table was next, its cracked yellow paint sinister in the dusk. There. Ben had crawled under it. It wasn't far to the street. There. In the lonely halo of light from a streetlamp, where the ball had rolled. The wet asphalt pressed cold through the knees of Meg's pants. There. Where their lives had ended.
[This message has been edited by J (edited November 10, 2008).]
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Meg ignored the speed with which each step vanished from view. Once on the ground floor, she thrust herself into the street, dark and mottled under tears falling behind as she sprinted to the park, concealed by black foliage shifting from a chill breeze that rose with the night.
She saw the road, the patch of hell holding onto the memory of a last moment too precious for release. She threw herself to the biting asphalt with a silent scream. Take mine instead! But the road would not trade her final breath for her five-year-old son's. She was alone in bargaining and far too late.
[This message has been edited by skadder (edited November 11, 2008).]
Thanks for playing.
I've noticed something that I think is rather interesting about these rewrites, though, and I wonder if it isn't part of the problem with the basic set of sentences: no "trigger" is given for Meg doing what she does, and it isn't clear how long it's been since her son's death.
Surely something must have happened out of the ordinary to send her down the stairs, out the door, and back to the scene, and I found myself wondering what that could have been.
philocinemas?
I liked most of what was written; there were unique points to each person's take. However, what I found was that a few wrote very similar in style to my own.
Question: Looking at what I originally wrote and cleaning up a few inconsistencies, would you consider my writing "purple"? If so, what makes it different from some of the others?
She stumbled down two flights of steps to get to the bottom floor and plunged out into the cold city night. The street was desolate, and as she fled, the curving lampposts flickered, seeming to languish in her despair. The chilling, unforgiving wind whispered accusations in her ears.
Fifteen minutes felt like an hour, but Meg found herself drawn back to the place where her life had ended – the park where, Ben, her five-year-old son had played that last time. She followed his steps as if they were her own, up and down the slide, over to the table to get the ball, and then out into the street. She prostrated herself and hugged the cold black asphalt. It was a gesture of forfeit and of desire to embrace something other than the emptiness time had left her.
To me, a level of metaphorical description is fine, as long as it fits the protagonist and the story. I like to see the story through the protagonist's eyes using the filter of the narration. If the narration spends a long time describing a scene, then the protag should have a reason to be examining the scene in such detail. A person visiting a childhood home for the first time in 20 years is going to describe in more detail than the home they live in every day, for instance. As well as the length of the description, what is described should also be filtered through the narrator. In your example, for instance, spending a fair amount of words describing the road is appropriate, because she's recalling the death of her son, but in another story, someone describing the road when it has no bearing to the character or the story might be inappropriate.
In this particular scene, I thought the level of description was appropriate for the content. She's distraught, emotional, not in a mundane state, and so her descriptions, even of mundane objects, are similarly not mundane.
My only real point applies to all writers, and that's one of having confidence in your own writing. That confidence, I think, mostly comes with experience and perseverance and a lot of writing. I also think it shows up clearly after a writer has a good grasp of their own writing "voice". A writer who has that kind of confidence can look at criticizm and decide if it applies. If it does, then by all means, they should adjust to it. But if they don't agree, they should just as easily be able to shrug it off. It is possible that the critiques are wrong. It is, after all, just someone's opinion.
I had meant to mention something a few days back but, being new, I had to wait for my registration to process and then the 11th was Remembrance Day up here so it has taken me a bit longer than intended. One of the sentences that you used in a later post to describe what you were trying to achieve with the lamposts struck me as actually being a more powerful choice of words to describe Meg's state of mind via her surroundings.
Instead of saying [quote]The street was desolate, and as she fled, the drooping lampposts seemed to languish in her despair.[\quote]
Something more like the following (using your own words)seems far simpler, yet more effective to me as I read. You would likely have to re-write the first sentance as well.
[quote]As she fled into the night the lampposts stood like rows of sentinels looking downcast as she passed.[\quote]
To me the second sentence paints a picture in my mind's eye. I can see the lampposts row upon row stretching out in front of her, reflecting her mood of both being downcast as well as overwhelmed... all in one sentence. It sets the scene for me as seen from her eyes.
Just my newbie 2 cents worth.
-W.
[This message has been edited by Monk (edited November 13, 2008).]
maybe even give the whole paragraph a rewrite around it and see which you end up preferring more in the end.
-W.
quote:
As she fled into the night the lampposts stood like rows of sentinels looking downcast as she passed.
You don't need 'looking', downcast suggest looking downwards, so it's redundant.
As she fled into the night the lampposts stood like rows of downcast sentinels as she passed.
Also it contains 'as' twice.
Here the girl is projecting her emotional state outward and it resonates with the physical attributes of the streetlamps. They point downwards like people with their heads tipped over (they disapprove of her, or feel her pain, or...etc.)--at least that is how I read it.
You could say that the someone looked unhappy, or that that they were unhappy from the perspective of the POV character. The streetlights also pointed downwards hence why they looked 'downcast'.
The sea looked angry... (emotional state, but also description of how it looks visually).
The angry sea...(the reader knows the see isn't angry, it is the POV character that is adding their own emotional layer to it.)
The sea isn't angry and neither are the lamp posts downcast in terms of how they feel (their emotional state is neutral--they are objects). It is the viewer that sees them that way, because they bear a physical resemblance to a either a physical or emotional state experienced or known by the POV character/reader.
However, since it is seen from the MC's POV it doesn't need to look that way--it can be that way.
A reader will pick up on the choice of the word 'downcast' and its double meaning in this context, especially as it forms part of a metaphor.
[This message has been edited by skadder (edited November 13, 2008).]
I really do like the analogy, but it doesn't feel right in this part of the story (even though it was my analogy) - and the wording is a little awkward. I often assign meaning to various objects (a little like extended metaphors), and I'm not sure if I want the lampposts to always be sentinels.
If anyone wants to play with the "sentinel" sentence, be my guest. Maybe you can sell me on it.
quote:
As she fled into the night, she passed arched lampposts, sentinels bowed to her sorrow.
When I call “purple” in a critique-or its more politic cousin “overwritten”, I mean that the voice doesn't ring true. Others have said it before in this thread and said it better already, but heck, we're writers and we're used to that, so I'll press on regardless...
Most of the time, I find that when I express a clear idea or image in a way that comes naturally, the mechanics don't matter. Word choice, grammar, structure, whatever—the reader doesn't even notice. The problems start when I don't have a clear idea of what I want to say and the right words—my words—just won't come. That's when I start using other people's words and the purple starts to seep in.
It's not a matter of style. Dickens is awesome; beyond awesome, but when I try to use his words, his voice instead of my own, people notice. The same goes for Hemmingway, at the other end of the spectrum, though when I try to pull that one off my prose gets called stilted rather than purple.
The way ahead? You got me there, though I suspect it involves lots and lots of writing, until my own voice rings out louder in my ears than all those other writers that I've read and want so badly to become and know I never can. That's the plan, at least.
quote:
I appreciate all the response no matter which way it is directed. I simply would like to understand why it is disliked so much.
My original first sentence read:
The words were hurled back and forth across the room, some in flailing desperation and others with deadly precision - daggers intended to pierce the soul.
Almost everybody said this was either "purple" or "overwritten", but when I removed the "- daggers intended to pierce the soul" part, the comments stopped. Maybe I should have posted this as my example, but I thought I'd use a longer section. Is it simply a matter of metaphor or the dramatic implications of the metaphor that causes the dislike? I believe it is the author's intrusion that is the problem, but then I have to go back to the comments of style. When I comment that the words were daggers readers feel that I'm forcing an image on them, and I am. Now the words are actual objects, which are thought of as doing far more damage. I removed the daggers part, but I still don't understand why it was disliked so much.
Regardless of all of this, just because I would like to become what I consider to be a great writer, doesn't mean I don't have my own style. I dare say that every one of us has somebody we would like to emulate, whether that be in style or success. I have no desire to resurrect this thread; my feelings on this matter are quite resolved. I want everyone to tell me when my writing goes purple, violet, or ultraviolet. My ultimate goal is to write and sell what I have written.
So I thank you all for your incite, criticism, and suggestions.