Purple Prose
Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 11:34 am
Purple prose is easy to define—it’s overly flowery and descriptive writing, heavy with adjectives, adverbs, plenty of elaborate (even obscure) words, and lots of metaphors. Purple prose isn’t a desirable thing; if someone uses that phrase when critiquing your work, they’re saying tone it down a notch or two.
But how much descriptiveness is too much? That’s not so easy—what one reader considers excessive might appeal to another reader. It also depends on the genre; some kinds of books rely more heavily on description than others. In addition, books that were written in previous decades (or centuries) will have more flowery language than contemporary works—that’s to be expected.
Still, nearly everyone can agree that gross overuse of some types of words can take a descriptive passage from one that appeals to the senses to one that feels like walking into great-grandma’s overly-perfumed Victorian parlor.
The tendency to over-write some passages could come from those creative writing classes we had in junior high and high school, where the teacher told us that adding descriptors and modifiers would make our writing more interesting. That’s true, to some extent, but those of us who took up writing several years after we’d been behind a school desk perhaps remembered that lesson far too well.
Enough of the theoretical—let’s get to some practical examples. Here’s a descriptive passage from The Tie that Binds, by the excellent writer Kent Haruf:
… the pictures I have seen of her show that she was a small thin woman with eyes that seemed too big for her head—one of those women with blue veins showing at both temples. A woman like that—tight strung, nervous, too fine altogether for what was wanted of her—never should have married somebody like him, and she paid for it. He was a hard stick. He was all stringy arms and legs, with an Adam’s apple like a hickory nut that jugged up and down when he chewed or said something…
I hope you don’t think that I’ve posted that passage as an example of purple prose, despite the fact that it’s a descriptive passage. It’s exactly the opposite of purple prose—written sparsely and with an economy of words. Let’s look at the definition in my first paragraph again.
Purple prose …
• is flowery. This passage uses simple, uncomplicated words—not flowery at all.
• is heavy with adjectives and adverbs. While this passage has several of these (small, thin, blue, nervous, stringy), none of them are words that call attention to themselves.
• uses elaborate or obscure words. The only word I found here that’s not used in its usual way is ‘jugged’ to describe the action of the man’s Adam’s apple. That word works very well to provide a visual image, and like the adjectives, doesn’t shout out notice me!
• uses lots of metaphors. There are a few metaphors here—He was a hard stick, and Adam’s apple like a hickory nut, but the mood they convey is in character with the sparseness of the passage.
So you can see that it’s the overuse of those bulleted items that characterizes purple prose.
But just to bring the lesson home, let’s rewrite that paragraph in purple prose (please forgive me, Mr. Haruf).
… the pictures I have seen of her show that she was a diminutive woman, whose arms were so minuscule that the youngest toddler could encircle them with but one softly dimpled hand. Her immense eyes seemed too enormous for her head, as if they had continued to grow, unabated, even as she reached a solemn adulthood. She was one of those dainty, delicate women with cerulean veins showing at both temples, occasionally throbbing, revealing the passions she attempted to conceal. A woman like that—tight strung, nervous, edgy and anxious, too fine altogether for what was wanted of her—never should have married somebody like him, and she paid for it. He was like the rigid limb of an old oak, a stick that had broken off in a tempest and was now used for punishing recalcitrant mules. He was all stringy arms and legs, with an Adam’s apple like a hickory nut that jugged up and down when he chewed or said something…
Do you see how adding descriptors and modifiers and more metaphors actually weakened that passage?
This particular paragraph describes people, but I’ve read Writing Challenge entries (and also the work of some of my editing clients) that use purple prose in describing settings or in describing the actions of characters. The characters in these stories don’t just say things: they chortle, they grunt, they quaver, they sputter, they wheeze. They don’t just go to the store: they amble casually down the crooked, gray, concrete sidewalk, whistling jauntily as they go.
If you’ve read a number of these writing lessons, you may be saying, Hold on a minute! What about rice cake words and salsa words? I thought we were supposed to use more interesting words in our sentences!
Yes, you are.
And this is where the art of writing comes in. The words you choose should specifically match the mood, tone, and atmosphere of your story. Kent Haruf’s novel is set in a simple time and place, and has quiet, slow pacing. Simplicity was the key to this passage (and to all of his writing); if he’d used a word like cerulean, it would be like an unwelcome neon light shining on that sentence and begging the reader to appreciate it.
But if your writing has a narrator from Victorian England, or takes place in a medieval fantasy world, you’ll want to make it—well, not exactly purple, but maybe a few shades more lavender than Haruf’s writing.
And of course, there are an infinite number of combinations of settings and genres and moods and characters, all of which should go into your determination of how purple you choose to write.
No homework here, but I’d love to ask for your help—these lessons are best when people visibly participate. If you’d like to give it a try, write a paragraph without purple prose and the same paragraph dipped in violet. OR you could share with us a short passage from something you’re reading that might be a tad on the purple side. OR you could just ask a question or make a comment.
But how much descriptiveness is too much? That’s not so easy—what one reader considers excessive might appeal to another reader. It also depends on the genre; some kinds of books rely more heavily on description than others. In addition, books that were written in previous decades (or centuries) will have more flowery language than contemporary works—that’s to be expected.
Still, nearly everyone can agree that gross overuse of some types of words can take a descriptive passage from one that appeals to the senses to one that feels like walking into great-grandma’s overly-perfumed Victorian parlor.
The tendency to over-write some passages could come from those creative writing classes we had in junior high and high school, where the teacher told us that adding descriptors and modifiers would make our writing more interesting. That’s true, to some extent, but those of us who took up writing several years after we’d been behind a school desk perhaps remembered that lesson far too well.
Enough of the theoretical—let’s get to some practical examples. Here’s a descriptive passage from The Tie that Binds, by the excellent writer Kent Haruf:
… the pictures I have seen of her show that she was a small thin woman with eyes that seemed too big for her head—one of those women with blue veins showing at both temples. A woman like that—tight strung, nervous, too fine altogether for what was wanted of her—never should have married somebody like him, and she paid for it. He was a hard stick. He was all stringy arms and legs, with an Adam’s apple like a hickory nut that jugged up and down when he chewed or said something…
I hope you don’t think that I’ve posted that passage as an example of purple prose, despite the fact that it’s a descriptive passage. It’s exactly the opposite of purple prose—written sparsely and with an economy of words. Let’s look at the definition in my first paragraph again.
Purple prose …
• is flowery. This passage uses simple, uncomplicated words—not flowery at all.
• is heavy with adjectives and adverbs. While this passage has several of these (small, thin, blue, nervous, stringy), none of them are words that call attention to themselves.
• uses elaborate or obscure words. The only word I found here that’s not used in its usual way is ‘jugged’ to describe the action of the man’s Adam’s apple. That word works very well to provide a visual image, and like the adjectives, doesn’t shout out notice me!
• uses lots of metaphors. There are a few metaphors here—He was a hard stick, and Adam’s apple like a hickory nut, but the mood they convey is in character with the sparseness of the passage.
So you can see that it’s the overuse of those bulleted items that characterizes purple prose.
But just to bring the lesson home, let’s rewrite that paragraph in purple prose (please forgive me, Mr. Haruf).
… the pictures I have seen of her show that she was a diminutive woman, whose arms were so minuscule that the youngest toddler could encircle them with but one softly dimpled hand. Her immense eyes seemed too enormous for her head, as if they had continued to grow, unabated, even as she reached a solemn adulthood. She was one of those dainty, delicate women with cerulean veins showing at both temples, occasionally throbbing, revealing the passions she attempted to conceal. A woman like that—tight strung, nervous, edgy and anxious, too fine altogether for what was wanted of her—never should have married somebody like him, and she paid for it. He was like the rigid limb of an old oak, a stick that had broken off in a tempest and was now used for punishing recalcitrant mules. He was all stringy arms and legs, with an Adam’s apple like a hickory nut that jugged up and down when he chewed or said something…
Do you see how adding descriptors and modifiers and more metaphors actually weakened that passage?
This particular paragraph describes people, but I’ve read Writing Challenge entries (and also the work of some of my editing clients) that use purple prose in describing settings or in describing the actions of characters. The characters in these stories don’t just say things: they chortle, they grunt, they quaver, they sputter, they wheeze. They don’t just go to the store: they amble casually down the crooked, gray, concrete sidewalk, whistling jauntily as they go.
If you’ve read a number of these writing lessons, you may be saying, Hold on a minute! What about rice cake words and salsa words? I thought we were supposed to use more interesting words in our sentences!
Yes, you are.
And this is where the art of writing comes in. The words you choose should specifically match the mood, tone, and atmosphere of your story. Kent Haruf’s novel is set in a simple time and place, and has quiet, slow pacing. Simplicity was the key to this passage (and to all of his writing); if he’d used a word like cerulean, it would be like an unwelcome neon light shining on that sentence and begging the reader to appreciate it.
But if your writing has a narrator from Victorian England, or takes place in a medieval fantasy world, you’ll want to make it—well, not exactly purple, but maybe a few shades more lavender than Haruf’s writing.
And of course, there are an infinite number of combinations of settings and genres and moods and characters, all of which should go into your determination of how purple you choose to write.
No homework here, but I’d love to ask for your help—these lessons are best when people visibly participate. If you’d like to give it a try, write a paragraph without purple prose and the same paragraph dipped in violet. OR you could share with us a short passage from something you’re reading that might be a tad on the purple side. OR you could just ask a question or make a comment.