>Purple prose is flowery and ornate writing that makes a piece of text impenetrable.
And this is bad because...
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>Purple prose is flowery and ornate writing that makes a piece of text impenetrable.
>excess of purple prose
Redditors genuinely have down syndrome
Because it’s boring. The only people who like this shit are inverse virtue signalers like
who need to establish that they are superior to le heckin soiboi redditors and don’t really like reading but enjoy their sense of superiority. Dense, flowery prose isn’t intellectual, challenging or even very aesthetic, it is truly what the second poster in your image said: filler. The only people who enjoy that are the morons who fall for the big books = big smarts meme like all pseuds
>inverse virtue signalers
moron
moron
>r-moron!
Mental midgit detected. Back to /r/books with your gay opinions and whiteknighting for reddit.
It’s so funny when you can so aptly describe a certain breed of moron they literally step up to identify themselves.
Stay mad, homosexual.
>Dense, flowery prose isn’t intellectual, challenging or even very aesthetic
>isn't challenging
Alright. Let's see your purple prose.
I enjoy it a lot.
>it is truly what the second poster in your image said: filler
Filler? Feller filler, feller? Folly, feller! To smack such a label on any work of literature is to decry literature itself. This is a polemic calling for a debasement, a destruction of the artistic foundation that gives literature any right to exist. "No more filler!" he pickets, "Give me plot, and no more!" Just he did this, she did that, and then this happened. Atmosphere is dead. Emotion is dead. Techniques that investigate the magnitude of language itself, that experiment with its topology, its limits, to invigorate the faculties of the mind? Too playful, too fun, too *bourgeois*. To the guillotine! Just feed me... just feed me bread and raw information.
Well written anon
moron
>back for the third time
Christ, that really was about you, huh?
Sorry you’re so stupid, anon
Based take, triggering all of the pseuds in the thread
if you are a writer or enjoyer of language and don't like wordplay then idk what to tell you, there are plenty who don't do it so why sit and complain with your thumb up your ass?
You’re missing my point: there is a massive difference between wordplay, inventive language, etc. and pointless filler telling the reader how pretty sun in trees is. Moby Dick is a great example of something verbose but not purple. Even though it isn’t always describing story events its words serve purpose and inform the reader. You don’t have five paragraphs on one minute description.
You can see the difference in the responses if people I made mad:
This is comedic, inventive, expressive and moves actually pretty well even though it’s a lot of words; not purple in the sense I was decrying.
This is the same thought repeated about three times. Why? Luckily anon didn’t spend several paragraphs belaboring the point, but the repetition is a sign that he would be writing purple shit
sounds insecure and autistic it's just fricking words, it's reading fricking words on paper, getting butthurt over not being able to decipher text is moronic to me but I guess that's my superiority talking silly me
Does that editor tag mean they're a professional editor? That's really pathetic.
That example is literally not purple prose what are they on about.
Indeed you would have to be a moron to say Turgenev writes purple prose.
>from behind the parted clouds, blue sky would appear, lucid and smiling, like a beautiful eye.
I understand where the redditor is coming from honestly, Shit like this is painful to read through.
>blocks your path
I read through that paragraph like butter. The only thing that is impenetrable is that redditor's skull.
That reads pretty nice, even in translation. Redditor is a fricking braindead moron once again.
How is this prose?
On the 30th of October, 2015, the owner of the bison farm in the Silesian suburb of Pszczyna received an unexpected letter strangely addressed to her fourteen year old granddaughter, Jane Sharp, whom had been out caring for the animals all morning; but there was no doubt, judging from the terrifying scrawl on the face of the envelope, whom had written it.
When the young girl saw her grandmother staring absentmindedly at the envelope for what seemed to be too long, she left the vivarium out of curiosity, and, with straw still in her hand, leaned against the door frame of the office.
>whom had
Was just about to say that
thanks. I was talking more structurally though. I can always get an editor for grammatical issues.
I want to know if it is clear and engaging.
Nta, but it’s neither engaging nor clear. There’s no need to draw things out this much or to introduce information so plainly. It would be more engaging if your points were brief and the audience were able to hang on the words more waiting for the reveal of crucial info
>Draw things out this much
What am I drawing out?
>introduce information so plainly
what is plain about the way I introduce the characters and setting?
>able to hang on the words more waiting for the reveal of the crucial info
You said that I "draw things out" too much but here you say that I should expand the scene more.
>What am I drawing out?
This is at most three events: the letter arrives, grandma grabs it, granddaughter sees the grandmas expression. You’ve made this an arduous ordeal of starting with precise time, place, and relation of the first character to her setting for no apparent reason.
It is plain to start literally with time then place then title of character in relation to the place. There’s truly no need.
And no, I’m absolutely not saying you should expand the scene more. If your words are efficient you can say less yet have the readers more engaged. To take one example, you’ve clearly spelled out the relation between the two women, whereas if you just depicted then and their difference and age it makes the reader wonder more about who they are to each other.
thank you very much for your response.
I thought it was necessary to set the scene and introduce the protagonist as soon as possible.
Do you mean that what I had written is boring exposition, and that I should start closer to the action? It is supposed to be the first 100 words of a horror thriller gothic type story.
If it is not too much trouble could you give me an example of a good opening that I should strive to emulate?
>whom had
>I can always get an editor for grammatical issues.
if you want to write you really ought to learn the difference between a subject and an object. You just wrote whom to achieve a tone you apparently can't authentically (re)produce.
thanks for your advice but again that is what editors are for
>that is what editors are for
not really, honestly
I like long sentences in general, but I had to work my way up to it. For my own personal liking, the sentences go on just a bit too long.
Having said that, you're probably going to alienate a looooooot of people as most people these day's can't hold a single, longer thought in their brain-RAM.
I would write the first sentence like this:
>On the 30th of October, 2015, the owner of the bison farm in the Silesian suburb of Pszczyna received an unexpected letter strangely addressed to her fourteen year old granddaughter, Jane Sharp. She had been out caring for the animals all morning, but there was no doubt, judging from the terrifying scrawl on the face of the envelope, whom had written it.
>whom had written it
who had written it
It is good aside from the long sentences. If you want to keep it that way, that is OK and will not hurt the writing overall. This is just a personal gripe too, but unless the date is important for the plot, just say “Late October”, as adding unnecessary details makes the reader’s mind waver. I also liked the sentence about the facial expression, I would maybe add a more visual detail to it, like what about the face conveys the emotion? Focus on maybe the eyes or the nose or the mouth.
have a nice day
I told you not to use those words
I think there’s a difference between using ornate language and focusing all your time on long descriptions of surroundings.
>flowery and ornate
homies must hate Shakespeare.
Fair point but Shakespeares language generally moves at the pace of the story despite being ornate; the characters use long and flowery words to provide exposition, not to prolong or delay the events. Granted, this is in general
Lol obviously struck a cord there
>u mad xD
Woah
Baroque is good, rococo is the kitschification thereof. Same goes for purple and prolix. Using a translation rather than something from English as an example introduces other issues. What's objected to is treading prosaic waffling that redoubles the author's subvocalizing homunculus and points to itself and its experience (or confabulation) of the description rather than the heart of memory. Unless you're Proust it's asking a lot of verisimilitude vernaculars and their consequences have been a disaster for the literary race
>vernaculars and their consequences have been a disaster for the literary race
Yes
Yup
That's not purple prose at all.
>purple prose
Whenever someone gives an example it is usually a description of something, in most cases the scenery
To be frank, purple prose seems to always be used to disparage a book they don’t like. Everyone has a different perspective of what is and what isn’t purple prose. For me there is often a thin line between setting the scene and aesthetic, and pure superficial flexing.
These factory line manufactured motherfrickers leave college sanctifying Hemingway and other journalists turned writers and want everyone in the world to write using that lackluster narrative nonfiction prose and call out the greats that had enough of a soul to do it differently.
>veganalLuftwaffe
Why are redditors so utilitarian and soulless
that is so beautiful though... this is what I read for - for passages like this. You can get good story and good characters in any other medium, but prose like this is what validates writing as something that won't get replaced.
Purple prose is only purple if it adds nothing to the text. What this redditor quoted is just a detailed description, fairly standard for the time actually.
Reddit is the quintessential source of prolix horse shit and actual braindead pretentiousness, but Ivan Turgenev is purple prose.
People who complain about descriptive prose are the same people who can't see the image of an apple in their head. Of course they hate it, it doesn't do anything for them.
Turgenev' Sketches is possibly the best book I have ever read when it comes to capturing the ambience of nature and the wild. Figures that a bugman who lives in exposed brick and cries when he enters a forest would dislike it so much.
Can't evoke feelings and sensations in a hylic
Couldn't read Turgenev because his works are mostly just simple, boring romantic fiction. I can't believe redditors are this moronic.
these are the same morons who won't read lord of the rings because they think it's too wordy
>wtf why dont these sentences stick to a max of two clauses like in my YA kino?
>impenetrable
maybe if you're moronic