Writing Treatie IX. Defending Purple Prose and Writing with a capitol W:
IX. Defending Purple Prose and Writing
with a capitol W:
So, there is a story of why
I am bringing this up. Once there was a terrible story in my review slush pile,
and I mean incredibly terrible. It was already published, but here it was in my
review slush pile. It was extra insulting to my senses because it was in a
shared universe started off by a majestic, master writer many decades ago who
had lost his right to the universe due to some copyright fiasco and here was
this stinking mass of pure excrement in that legacy. Now, I make many friends
with my editors, a good thing to do. So I grabbed several writers’ old
manuscripts that wrote in this shared universe and sent them to such editor so
we could despair at what had happened. At the same time, since this freighting
editor never gave me the freight, and only ever said good things about my works
I secretly slipped a story of my own into the pile.
When he got to it he
looked at it and in his words “and this guy is a purple prose trihard hack,
look at him going on about seagulls.” True a lot of context was missing from
the stories themselves due to the draft state. This floored me a bit because
one he had read that story several months earlier without a negative word and
two got me thinking on the subject.
Purple Prose “In literary criticism, purple
prose is prose text that is as extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the
flow and draw excessive attention to itself. Purple prose is characterized by
the excessive use of adjectives” ~ Webster’s etymology.
It is quick to throw out
this claim as a critique. However, in understanding the critique it becomes one
of interesting debate and observation. Is it or is it not a thing?
One can argue it about
language use as the more over-detailed someone gets to be avoided. This is why
you use quick controlled bursts instead of larger sentences.
I just wish to elaborate
it is ok to have flowery, ornate language. That is the beauty of language.
Languages are not fixed things, they evolve, and they change overtime. Words
have many definitions and it is ok to use those alternative definitions. Poetry
is an old form of communication and expression and can be used in your writing.
It is not static. There is such a push to the simplest tales to audience.
However, even if simplest is often best, that cheapens audience and in a way
cheapness humanity and its expression. It cheapens art. I, in my line of work
often have to have conversation with museum personnel over display text. They
argue they want the text to be read at an 8 years old level. I was reading Lord of the Rings when I was eight years
old. Many in the mass market also liken to mark work at simple mass audience
level. However, it becomes a question of what is the mass audience and are they
that stupid? When you keep everyone and everything at the same level you create
staleness and do not allow for learning and advancement. True some folk don’t like a challenge, but if
there is a challenge people will reach for that challenge. It is good to think.
It is an exercise to think. The markets do not control words; the words exist
outside of the market.
So use language in its
varied fun ways. Use alliteration, complex metaphors, philosophical notions,
unique descriptions, alternative definitions, old word forms, etc. You are
creating art as is telling a story.
Language is art and there
are definitely some teachers and editors who fail to see this getting stuck to
rules of grammar which may not actually be pertinent to what is being done.
Just keep in mind that
everything in a story needs to have purpose this includes the languages and
words. The scenes and events needs to pertain to that purpose.
“Suit the action to the
word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep
not the modesty of nature” ~ Hamlet, Shakespeare.
