How purple is your prose?

I think my adoration of the old school of romance is a bit unhealthy. My first drafts are so purple the font colour changes itself to aubergine.

I've got to watch my purple tendencies...

Violet, magenta, pomegranate, heliotrope, violaceous and amaranthine.

Yeah, I grew up on the bodice-ripper romances with Prince-like prose (Actually, The Artist Formerly Known As Prince). And that's what I write--with plenty of murder, torture, mayhem, sex, action and adventure.

My prose tends toward the purple and prolix (yet I always come up short in word count, curious, no?). I have to work hard during editing to limit simile and metaphor, and take the prose from aubergine to only a tinge of lilac. Tis hard work indeed.

Hate to read it, hate to write it. I prefer pithy and succint (not that I always achieve it).

Purple prose?

Not my bag, baby.

Hate reading it, so have to try to tone it down in my writing.

Sometimes have a tendency to get over-descriptive, though nothing that a good edit can't fix.

Mostly I write in sparseltongue, but there are times and places (in a story) where description can and should get colorful. I just try to remember there are a lot of colors that come up short of purple when it comes to prose.

NeuroFizz said:

there are times and places (in a story) where description can and should get colorful. I just try to remember there are a lot of colors that come up short of purple when it comes to prose.

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Ditto. There are at least a few other colors in the rainbow purple goes well with...

Just call me :

Examples please? I still battle to know what you guys mean by purple prose.

Cassiopeia said:

Examples please? I still battle to know what you guys mean by purple prose.

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Sure, I'll send you my first novel.

Mine's aquamarine. And it goes to eleven.

I think of purple prose as overly poetic; exaggerated language or imagery, embellishing and cushioning a scene with flowery descriptors, etc.

EDIT: While I wrote that multiple people posted. Pay more attention to them. I probably have no idea what I'm saying.

There is a little bit of purple here and there.

More and I would delete it again

Renee Collins said:

Sure, I'll send you my first novel.

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Eeeps, that somehow sounds ominous.

NeuroFizz said:

In the darkness, not one day past
blunt end to me, serendipitous cast
an oak did lie full grooved and etched
impacted sinew thusly stretched
a trestle, hissed in cadence force
the act without, but delayed remorse

Or, put in non-Gongorian roe
I just stubbed my fucking toe



NOTE: Gongorism is considered a deliberately ornamental, meaningless and obscure style. It is reported to originate from the works of the Spanish poet Luis de Gongora y Argote (1561-1627), however, the exaggerations of his imitators (evidently) contributed more to the hits on his reputation than did his own work.

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ut-oh, I guess that's my last poetry submission in the critiquing forum. I deliberately made it overly descriptive. LOL

But here's the kicker, which places this purple prose thing in the same continuum as other aspects of the writing craft: one person's purple prose will be another person's beautiful description.

On balance, it's a complex taste issue of both a depth (of the purple) and frequency (how often does the writing go that way) thing. What we have to worry most about, though, is the taste of agents and editors. I think they have tastebuds that are specially tuned to the flavor of purple, and those buds are not wired to the pleasure centers of their brains (for good reasons related to selling books).

Cassiopeia said:

Eeeps, that somehow sounds ominous.

ut-oh, I guess that's my last poetry submission in the critiquing forum. I deliberately made it overly descriptive. LOL

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No. It's a totally different ball game in poetry.

I think they have tastebuds that are specially tuned to the flavor of purple, and those buds are not wired to the pleasure centers of their brains (for good reasons related to selling books).

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Yes! because those damn poetry kids who hang out in Barnes and Nobles Never buy anything!

(only kidding)

There is a time and a place for everything, including purple prose.

I've found that one great use for purple prose is in matters dealing with emotion and feeling. The purple captures that 'emotion' better than straight writing IMHO.

Used sparringly, it provides a nice change up to the story and in the right doses, is like spice and seasoning, taking the dish from good to superb.

But you must be careful, the Purple Prose Monster can be like tribbles. If you don't keep an eye on them, they can overwhelm a piece until it is choke-full of fluffy purple prose-lets.

Mel...

I write sparsely on first draft --almost skeletal-- but the beginning of purple prose is there. On second draft, that's where I get into trouble and start adding too much detail. Or maybe I could call it redundant description. Almost overkill. (See what I did there? LOL) On third and subsequent drafts, I try to pick out the description that works best and cut the rest. Whether or not I'm successful at that in the end is open to debate, for sure.

Parts of my prose are so purple they look bruised. I can't stop myself.