Thread: Why is 'purple' prose frowned upon?

I was just wondering about this. I understand about the passive voice and all that but the use of purple prose, especially in description doesn't seem to bother me that much. I've read where some people don't mind it as much but then again some people hate it. From my experiments with it purple prose can really add a dimension to description and can often create a surreal reading experience.

With that said it is definately something I have to learn to control as my writing can get a bit long winded at times but in the end is it really all that bad? I can see where it can be annoying sometimes but at the same time I feel purply or flowery prose can add something. Maybe it just is a style issue when all is said and done.

The one thing I will agree on is the passive voice. I get confused when I read work in the passive and when you change it around the writing does elevate a notch or two but the purple. Hmm, thoughts. This has been bothering me for a little bit.

I think that purple prose refers to a style of over-writing, somewhat akin to over-acting. If it is well enough written and germane to the passage of prose in which it appears, it ain't purple...

I came across this as I read the meaning of purple prose

Roman poet Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65–8 BCE) who wrote in his Ars Poetica

"Your opening shows great promise, and yet flashy
purple patches; as when describing
a sacred grove, or the altar of Diana,
or a stream meandering through fields,
or the river Rhine, or a rainbow;
but this was not the place for them. If you can realistically render
a cypress tree, would you include one when commissioned to paint
a sailor in the midst of a shipwreck''

then another example:
'The term purple patch is also used in a more general, and more unequivocally positive, sense to refer to a period of outstanding achievement. This usage is particularly common in sporting contexts in some countries; for example, a footballer who had scored in six successive games might be said to be "enjoying a purple patch'

Are you able to post an example of your work to clarify what purple prose is?

Shrug- here is a rough passage that gets a bit purply. Plus I think I screwed up a bit when I said the playground cast yadda yadaa yadda. I did research the word cast and if you dig deep it makes sense but I can see how making it a bit clearer might not put off the reader. Anyway, here is a rough paragraph that gets a tad purply or flowery. It's not so purple that it's obnoxious but...

"The playground, which now bore the resemblance of a graveyard, cast an eerie silence upon the dying afternoon. Neatly cut green grass played canvas to a blood painting created from the recent attack, which projected a somber mood into the surrounding air. Bear walked slowly through the human wreckage searching for his quarry. The broken skull of experiment number twenty-five lay on the seat of a teeter-totter. With cautious hands, Bear picked up the skull and examined the insides through a hole in the bone. With the anticipation of a youngster, peering into a cookie jar Bear inserted his index finger into the skull. He made a circular motion with his finger pausing once and bringing forth a small piece of shiny metal. Carefully balancing the metal on his fingertip Bear examined the shard in the fading sunlight."

Being a bit purply doesn't bother me as much as the word with falling directly under eachother. I hate when I do that. I could change it by saying something like Cautious hands guided Bear as he picked up the skull and examined the insides through a hole in the bone. or something like that.

"The bus ride was boring to say the least. Creek found mild entertainment in watching the raindrops play Picasso on the window. The water broke apart and reformed in shapes that would make a pornographer blush. Rain cast a surreal camouflage to the mundane acts of perversity that called home to the streets. Quick drug deals, nonchalant whoring, and the poverty-stricken, fighting for a better life crawled by in a clip of flash photography. Creek grew bored with the drills and gave a meticulous look around. Surmising that the surrounding unhinged were self-absorbed in their pretentiously, pompous poppycock, he reached to his front pocket and produced a silver pentagram."

If you do a quick search for purple prose you can find some extremely obnoxious lines.

humm...quite gorish in places..almost like a feeling of despair and death
so purple/flowerey is another word for over the top descritption either gory or too sweet right meaning the two extremes,
here is another piece doing just that purple writing..

''It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.''

I quite like the idea because it enriches the imageries, there is a feeling of intensity and romanticism to it, but I would prefer to be done in a more attractive way, less gory but a brighter happier tone to it.
why would anyome frown on this is the question?

Some critics will defend purple prose. I think they try to limit it as too much flowery writing can detract from the story but in the proper doses I kind of like the 'purple' patches. It's something I have to work on and at the same time not let my writing get too dry.

*Currently, the biggest thing I worry about is passive voice. I'm proud to say that in all my works my passive voice ends up being a nice 0%.

*One other reason I like purple prose is it creates an over the top description and my first few books were kind of exploitation horror. I wanted to really go for a 'grindhouse' presentation. Huge fan of B movies.

Purple prose is bad because too many words are used to describe something that doesn't need them. "Never use a long word when a shorter one will do." Not everything has to be so excessively poetic, and some people just want to read a story without fighting through dense descriptions of everything.

For example, consider this improvement to the "dark and stormy night" paragraph. The original text had 58 words. This has 33.

"It was a dark and stormy night. The rain poured down mercilessly, rattling against the street and rooftops. Lamps flickered under its onslaught, and only the occasional gust of wind lessened its intensity."

My version says everything that the original piece did, and mine uses half the words. It's not necessarily the best bit of writing, but it was thrown together in about five minutes and isn't bad.

You know why first drafts need editing? Besides grammatical mistakes, people are prone to using too many words to describe something that doesn't need them. That's why novels in a series get longer as the series continues: Editors are less likely to tear apart an established author, even though the problems with brevity that existed in the first novels surely exist in the last ones.

Point taken. Now, when I write my purple prose in my edit I'll cut words and reserve the purple prose for a paragraph that needs the effect. Shrug, still learning the craft.

Purple, or flowery, prose tends to sound grandiose after awhile. Like Bloggsworth said -- similar to overacting. The author is usually trying too hard to make his point, too many adjectives, or whatever else. In the example you provided, the one about the playground, it starts to get purple near the second sentence: 'dying afternoon', 'canvas to a blood painting', etc.

I agree with what Gamer and johnMG said, but to add my thoughts to mix, purple prose tends to make the reader focus more on the writing itself and not so much on the story. And it makes the author seem more than a little pretentious. If that's what you're going for, then cool (but good luck finding a market other than Bulwer-Lytton). If not, rethink the melodramatic hues that are making your story unreadable.

I agree with tiamat10. When I run into a patch of purple I scan until I get back to the story. Overdone description, that goes on and on, is too time consuming when the same thing can be said in a more direct manner or with a nicely turned phrase. Purple prose makes me think the thing is written for a College Professor, not a reader that wants to read a story.

Originally Posted by egpenny

I agree with tiamat10. When I run into a patch of purple I scan until I get back to the story. Overdone description, that goes on and on, is too time consuming when the same thing can be said in a more direct manner or with a nicely turned phrase. Purple prose makes me think the thing is written for a College Professor, not a reader that wants to read a story.

Well spoken. Except when the writer wants to create blurry vision. If I try to create that blur and you still read it as me trying to impress someone, then as a writer I have failed.

I strive for foggy. Then again you have to ask yourself where the line took you not related to a prof but more of a melodic stand point.=poetic prose?

I want my writing to take you on a roller coaster ride!

You should ask yourself why you do it. That's the issue. It's not that purple is bad. It's that it's typically done badly. People go purple because they think that's how they convey emotion or sound interesting. As it happens, they end up sounding nonsensical or cliche because they aren't using the purple prose intelligently. They aren't commanding it. They are surrendering to its formulaic vapidity.

I really like to paint a strong visual picture with my words. That's probably why I over do my description at times. I guess I just have to learn when to use it and not overdo things so it distracts the reader. It's really a fine line that I have to learn to master. Definately don't want to give up on the style just have to learn to perfect it when I use the elaborate description.

Originally Posted by John Brightman

I really like to paint a strong visual picture with my words. That's probably why I over do my description at times.

I'm convinced less is more most of the time. Took me awhile to figure it out for myself. But when I'm reading a story where the description is minimal and then the author puts in a unique and incredibly vivid description, it hits me like nothing else does. Part of the reason for that is its frequency. If the description is rare then often it has greater impact than if it is competing for attention in a story full of adjectives.

The other thing about creating strong images is their placement. If you end a scene with a kind of poetic flourish, followed by a linebreak, then it's as if the line/image is doubly resonant. Done well and it seems to echo.